ESSAYS  ON  GREAT  WRITERS 


\ 


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ESSAYS  ON 
GREAT    WRITERS 


BY 


HENRY  DWIGHT  SEDGWICK,  Jr. 


BOSTON    AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUr^.iON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1903 


COPYRIGHT,    1903,    BY    HENRY    DWIGHT   SEDGWICK,  JR. 
ALL    KICHTS    RESERVED 


Published,  September,  igoj 


T4 


To 
MY  FATHER 


,ll 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott 1 

D'Annunzio,  Novelist 39 

Montaigne 93 

Macaulay 139 

English  and  French  Literature        .        .        .  199 

Don  Quixote 233 

A  Holiday  with  Montaigne         ....  263 

Some  Aspects  of  Thackeray    ....  309 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE   OF  SCOTT 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE   OF  SCOTT  ^ 


It  is  wholly  fit  that  Americans  should  go 
on  pilgrimage  to  Abbotsford.  A  remem- 
brance of  virtue  is  there  which  we,  at  least, 
cannot  find  at  Canterbury,  Lourdes,  or  Loreto. 
There  is  but  one  comparable  spot  in  Great 
Britain,  and  that  is  on  the  banks  of  Avon  ; 
but  at  Stratford,  encompassed  by  memorials 
of  idolatry,  surrounded  by  restoration  and 
renovation,  harried  and  jostled  by  tourists, 
the  pilgrim  wearily  passes  from  bust  to  por- 
trait, from  Halliwell  to  Furness,  from  side- 
board to  second-best  bedstead,  with  a  sick 
sense  of  human  immortality,  till  his  eye 
fights  upon  the  "  W.  Scott  "  scrawled  on  the 
window-pane.  If  Walter  Scott  made  this 
pilgrimage,  if  his  feet  limped  through  the 
churchyard  of  Holy  Trinity,  if  he  looked  at 
the  ugly  busts,  if  he,  too,  was  elbowed  by 

^  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  by  John  Gibson 
Lockhart.  Boston  and  New  York  :  Houghton,  Mifiliu  & 
Co.     1902.     5  vols. 


4  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

American  women  there,  then  welcome  all,  the 
sun  shines  fair  on  Stratford  again. 

Abbotsford  has  discomforts  of  its  own,  but 
there  one  has  glimpses  of  Scott's  abounding 
personality.  How  wonderful  was  that  per- 
sonality ;  how  it  sunned  and  warmed  and 
breathed  balm  upon  the  lean  and  Cassius- 
like  Lockhart,  till  that  sweetened  man  became 
transfigured,  as  it  were,  and  wrote  one  of 
the  most  acceptable  and  happy  books  of  the 
world  ;  —  a  personahty,  so  rich  and  ripe,  that 
nature  of  necessity  encased  it  in  lovable 
form  and  features.  In  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  is  a  good  picture  of  Scott,  large- 
browed,  blue-eyed,  ruddy-hued,  the  great  out- 
of-door  genius ;  one  of  his  dogs  looks  up  at 
him  with  sagacious  appreciation.  There  is 
the  large  free  figure,  but  what  can  a  painter 
with  all  his  art  tell  us  of  a  person  whom  we 
love  ?  How  can  he  describe  the  noble  career 
from  boyhood  to  death ;  how  can  he  deline- 
ate the  wit,  the  laughter,  the  generosity,  the 
high  devotion,  the  lofty  character,  the  dog- 
ged resolution,  and  the  womanly  tenderness 
of  heart?  The  biographer  has  the  harder 
task.  A  hundred  great  portraits  have  been 
painted,  from  Masaccio  to  John  Sargent,  but 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  5 

the  great  biographies  are  a  half  dozen,  and 
one  of  the  best  is  this  book  of  Lockhart's. 

As  generations  roll  on,  the  past  drifts 
more  and  more  from  the  field  of  our  vision  ; 
the  England  of  Scott's  day  has  become  a 
classic  time,  the  subjects  of  George  III.  are 
strangers  of  foreign  habits ;  tastes  change, 
customs  alter,  books  multiply,  and  with  all 
the  rest  the  Waverley  Novels  likewise  show 
their  antique  dress  and  betray  their  mortahty  ; 
but  the  life  of  a  great  man  never  loses  its 
interest.  As  a  tune  recedes  into  remoteness, 
its  books,  saving  the  few  on  which  time  has 
no  claim,  become  unreadable,  but  a  man's 
life  retains  and  tightens  its  hold  upon  us. 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  Lockhart 
has  done  for  Scott's  fame  almost  as  much  as 
Scott  himself.  The  greatest  of  Scotsmen  in 
thirty  novels  and  half  a  dozen  volumes  of 
poetry  has  sketched  his  own  lineaments,  but 
Lockhart  has  filled  out  that  sketch  with  neces- 
sary amplification,  admiring  and  just.  What 
would  we  not  give  for  such  a  biography  of 
Homer  or  Virgil,  of  Dante  or  Shakespeare  ? 
But  if  we  possessed  one,  dare  we  hope  for  a 
record  of  so  much  virtue  and  happiness,  of 
so  much  honor  and  heroic  duty  ? 


6  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

Walter  Scott  is  not  only  a  novelist,  not 
only  a  bountiful  purveyor  of  enjoyment ;  his 
life  sheds  a  light  as  well  as  a  lustre  on 
England.  Of  right  he  ought  to  be  seated  on 
St.  George's  horse,  and  honored  as  Britain's 
patron  saint,  for  he  represents  what  Britain's 
best  shoidd  be,  he,  the  loyal  man,  the  constant 
friend,  joyous  in  youth,  laborious  in  manhood, 
high-minded  in  the  sad  decadent  years,  think- 
ing no  evil,  and  faithful  with  the  greatest 
faith,  that  in  virtue  for  virtue's  sake.  Every 
English-speaking  person  should  be  familiar 
with  that  noble  life. 

One  sometimes  wonders  if  a  change  might 
not  without  hurt  be  made  in  the  studies  of 
boys  ;  whether  Greek  composition,  or  even 
solid  geometry,  —  studies  rolled  upward  Hke 
a  stone  to  roll  down  again  at  the  year's  end 
with  a  glorious  splash  into  the  pool  of  obliv- 
ion, —  might  not  be  discontinued,  and  m  its 
stead  a  course  of  biography  be  put.  Boys 
should  read  and  read  again  the  biographies 
of  good  men.  The  first  two  should  be  the 
History  of  Don  Quixote  and  Lockhart's  Life 
of  Scott.  In  young  years,  so  fortified  against 
enclitics  and  angles,  yet  unfolding  and  docile 
to  things  wliich  touch  the  heart,  would  not  the 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  7 

boy  derive  as  much  benefit  from  an  enthusi- 
astic perusal  of  Lockhart's  volumes  as  from 
disheartening  attempts  to  escalade  the  irregu- 
lar aorist?  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  the 
wise  Jesuits  bade  their  young  scholars  read 
the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  Are  there  no  les- 
sons to  be  learned  for  the  living  of  life  ? 

Don  Quixote  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  look 
very  unlike,  one  with  his  cracked  brain  and 
the  other  with  his  shrewd  good  sense,  but 
they  have  this  in  common,  that  Don  Quixote 
is  an  heroic  man  whose  heroism  is  obscured 
by  craziness  and  by  the  irony  under  which 
Cervantes  hid  his  own  great  beliefs,  while 
Scott  is  an  heroic  man,  whose  heroism  is 
obscured  by  success  and  by  the  happiness 
under  which  he  concealed  daily  duty  faith- 
fully done.  In  the  good  school  of  hero-wor- 
ship these  men  supplement  one  another,  the 
proud  Spaniard,  the  canny  Scot,  great-hearted 
gentlemen  both.  Our  affection  for  them  is 
less  a  matter  of  argument  than  of  instinct ; 
their  worthiness  is  demonstrated  by  our  love. 
I  cannot  prove  to  you  my  joy  in  the  month 
of  May;  if  you  feel  dismal  and  Novem- 
brish,  why,  turn  up  your  collar  and  shiver 
lustily.      The   Spaniard   is   rather   for  men 


8  LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF   SCOTT 

who  have  failed  as  this  world  judges ;  the 
Scot  for  those  who  live  in  the  sunshine  of 
life. 

English  civilization,  which  with  all  its  im- 
perfections is  to  many  of  us  the  best,  is  a  slow- 
growing  plant ;  though  pieced  and  patched 
with  foreign  graftings,  it  still  keeps  the  same 
sap  which  has  brought  forth  fruit  this  thou- 
sand years.  It  has  fashioned  certain  ideals  of 
manhood,  which,  while  changing  clothes  and 
speech  and  modes  of  action,  maintain  a  resem- 
blance, an  English  type,  not  to  be  likened  to 
foreign  ideals,  beautiful  as  those  may  be ;  we 
have  much  to  learn  from  those  great  examples, 
but  the  noble  type  of  the  English  is  different. 
Sir  Thomas  Malory's  Round  Table,  Philip 
Sidney,  Falkland,  Russell,  Howard  the  philan- 
thropist, Robertson  the  priest,  Gordon  the 
soldier,  —  choose  whom  you  will,  —  have  a 
national  type,  not  over-flexible,  but  of  a  most 
enduring  temper.  The  traditions  which  have 
gathered  about  these  men  have  wrought  a 
type  of  English  gentleman  which  we  honor 
in  our  unreasonable  hearts.  Our  ideals  are 
tardy  and  antiquated  ;  they  savor  of  the  past, 
of  the  long  feudal  past.  We  listen  politely 
to  the  introducer  of  new  doctrines  of  right- 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  9 

eousness,  of  new  principles  of  morality,  and 
nod  a  cold  approval,  "  How  noble  !  "  "  What 
a  fine  fellow  !  "  "  Excellent  man  ! "  but  there 
is  no  touch  of  that  enthusiasm  with  which 
we  cry,  "  There  !  there  is  a  gentleman  !  "  A 
foolish  method,  no  doubt,  and  worthy  of 
the  raps  and  raillery  it  receives,  but  it  is 
the  English  way.  Educated  men,  with  their 
exact  training  in  sociology  and  science, 
smile  at  us,  mock  us,  bewail  us,  and  still  our 
cheeks  flush  with  pleasure  as  we  behold 
on  some  conspicuous  stage  the  old  type  of 
English  hero ;  and  we  feel,  ignorantly,  that 
there  is  no  higher  title  than  that  of  gentle- 
man, no  better  code  of  ethics  than  that  of 
chivalry,  rooted  though  it  be  on  the  absurd 
distinction  between  the  man  on  horseback 
and  the  man  on  foot. 

The  great  cause  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  pop- 
ularity during  life  and  fame  after  death  is 
that  he  put  into  words  the  chivalric  ideas 
of  England,  that  he  declared  in  poem,  in 
romance,  and  in  his  actions,  the  honorable 
service  rendered  by  the  Cavalier  to  society, 
and  so  he  stirred  the  deep  instinctive  affec- 
tions—  prejudices  if  you  will  —  of  British 
conservatism.     He    founded    the    Romantic 


10  LOCKHAKT'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

School  in  Great  Britain,  not  because  he  was 
pricked  on  by  Border  Ballads  or  by  Gotz  von 
Berlichingen,  but  because,  descended  from 
the  Flower  of  Yarrow  and  great-grandson  of 
a  Killiecrankie  man,  he  had  been  born  and 
bred  a  British  gentleman,  with  all  his  poetic 
nature  sensitive  to  the  beauty  and  charm  of 
chivalry.  History  as  seen  by  a  poet  is  quite 
different  from  history  as  seen  by  a  Social 
Democrat ;  and  the  Cavalier  —  if  we  may 
draw  distinctions  that  do  not  touch  any 
question  of  merit  —  requires  a  historian  of 
different  temper  and  of  different  education 
from  the  historian  of  the  clerk  or  the  plough- 
man. The  youth  filled  with  rich  enthusi- 
asm for  life,  kindled  into  physical  joy  by  a 
hot  gallop,  quickened  by  a  fine  and  tender 
sympathy  between  man  and  beast,  crammed 
with  fresh  air,  health,  and  delight,  vivified 
with  beauty  of  April  willows  and  autumnal 
heather,  is  remote,  stupidly  remote  perhaps, 
from  the  scrivener  at  his  desk,  or  the  laborer 
with  his  hoe.  The  difference  is  not  just,  it 
is  not  in  accord  with  sociological  theories,  it 
must  pass  away ;  yet  it  has  existed  in  the 
past  and  still  survives  in  the  present,  and 
a  CavaUer  to  most  of  us  is  the  accepted  type 


LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF  SCOTT  11 

of  gentleman,  and  "  chivalric "  is  still  the 
proudest  adjective  of  praise.  Of  this  sec- 
tion of  life  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  the  great  his- 
torian, and  he  became  its  historian,  not  so 
much  because  he  was  of  it,  as  because  he 
delighted  in  it  with  all  his  quaUties  of  heart 
and  head. 

We  still  linger  in  the  obscurity  of  the 
shadow  cast  by  the  Feudal  Period  ;  we  cannot 
avoid  its  errors,  let  us  not  forget  the  virtues 
which  it  prescribes ;  let  us  remember  the  pre- 
cepts of  chivalry,  truth-telling,  honor,  devo- 
tion, enthusiasm,  compassion,  reckless  self- 
sacrifice  for  an  ideal,  love  of  one  woman,  and 
affection  for  the  horse.  For  such  learning 
there  is  no  textbook  like  this  Life  of  Scott. 
Moreover,  in  Lockhart's  biography,  we  are 
studying  the  EngHsh  humanities,  we  learn 
those  special  qualities  which  directed  Scott's 
genius,  those  tastes  and  inchnations  which, 
combining  with  his  talents,  enabled  him  to 
shift  the  course  of  English  literature  from 
its  eighteenth-century  shallows  into  what  is 
known  as  the  Romantic  movement. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  that  America  should 
render  to  Scott's  memory  the  homage  of  this 
new  edition  of  Lockhart  with  generous  print, 


12  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

broad  margin,  and  that  comfortable  weight 
that  gives  the  hand  a  share  in  the  pleasure 
of  the  book  and  yet  exacts  no  further  ser- 
vice. What  would  the  boy  Walter  Scott 
have  said,  if  in  vision  these  stately  volumes, 
like  Banquo's  issue  royally  appareled,  had 
risen  before  him  one  after  one,  to  interrupt 
his  urchin  warfare  in  the  streets  of  Edin- 
burgh? But  the  physical  book,  admirable 
as  it  is,  equip23ed  for  dress  parade  and  some- 
what ostentatious  in  its  pride  of  office,  is 
but  the  porter  of  its  contents.  Miss  Susan 
M.  Francis,  with  pious  care,  excellent  judg- 
ment, and  sound  discrimination,  worthy 
indeed  of  the  true  disciple,  has  done  just 
what  other  disciples  have  long  been  wishing 
for.  At  appropriate  places  in  the  text,  as  if 
Lockhart  had  paused  to  let  Miss  Francis  step 
forward  and  speak,  come,  in  modest  guise  as 
footnotes,  pertinent  passages  from  Scott's 
Journal,  and  letters  from  Lady  Louisa  Stuart, 
John  Murray,  and  others.  The  Familiar  Let- 
ters, the  Journal,  and  many  a  book  to  which 
Lockhart  had  no  access,  have  supplied  Miss 
Francis  with  the  material  for  these  rich  addi- 
tions. The  reader's  pleasure  is  proof  of  the 
great  pains,  good  taste,  and  long  experience 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  13 

put  to  use  in  compiling  these  notes.  The 
editor's  is  an  honest  service  honorably  per- 
formed. As  a  consequence  —  and  perhaps  I 
speak  as  one  of  many  —  I  now  possess  an 
edition  of  Lockhart  which,  strong"  in  text, 
notes,  and  form,  may  make  bold  to  stand 
on  the  shelf  beside  what  for  me  is  the  edi- 
tion of  the  Waverley  Novels.  This  edition 
published  in  Boston  —  it  bears  the  name 
Samuel  H.  Parker  —  has  a  binding  which 
by  some  ordinance  of  Nature  or  of  Time, 
the  two  great  givers  of  rights,  has  come  to 
be  the  proper  dress  of  the  Waverley  Novels. 
Its  color  varies  from  a  deep  mahogany  to  the 
lighter  hues  of  the  horse-chestnut ;  what  it 
may  have  been  before  it  was  tinted  by  the 
hands  of  three  generations  cannot  be  guessed. 
This  ripe  color  has  penetrated  within  and 
stained  the  pages  with  its  shifting  browns. 
It  is  plain  that  Time  has  pored  and  paused 
over  these  volumes,  hesitating  whether  he 
should  not  lay  aside  his  scythe  ;  he  will  travel 
far  before  he  shall  find  again  so  pleasant  a 
resting-place.  This  Parker  edition  used  to 
stand  on  a  shelf  between  two  windows,  with 
unregarded  books  above  and  below.  On 
another  bookcase  stood  the  Ticknorand  Fields 


14  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

edition  of  Lockhart,  1851,  its  back  bedecked 
with  claymores  and  a  filibeg,  or  some  such 
thing ;  the  designer  seems  to  have  thought 
that  Scott  was  a  Highland  chief.  But, 
though  exceeding  respectable,  that  edition 
was  obviously  of  lower  rank  than  the  Parker 
edition  of  the  novels ;  be-claymored  and  fili- 
begged  it  stood  apart  and  ignored,  while  the 
novels  were  taken  out  as  if  they  had  been 
ballroom  belles.  In  fact,  there  is  something 
feminine,  something  almost  gii'lish,  about  a 
delightful  book ;  without  wooing  it  will  not 
yield  the  full  measure  of  its  sweetness.  In 
those  days  we  always  made  proper  prepara- 
tion —  a  boy's  method  of  courtship  —  to  read 
Scott.  The  proper  preparation  —  but  who 
has  not  discovered  it  for  himself  ?  —  is  to  be 
young,  and  to  put  an  apple,  a  gillyflower,  into 
the  right  pocket,  two  slices  of  buttered  bread, 
quince  jam  between,  into  the  left,  thrust  the 
mahogany  volume  into  the  front  pouch  of 
the  sailor  suit,  then,  carefully  protecting 
these  protuberant  burdens,  shinny  up  into  a 
maple-tree,  and  there  among  the  branches, 
hidden  by  the  leaves,  which  half  hinder  and 
half  invite  the  warm,  green  sunshine,  sit 
noiseless ;  the  body  be-appled  and  be-jammed 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  15 

into  quiescent  sympathy,  while  the  elated 
spirit  swims  dolphin-like  over  the  glorious 
sea  of  romance.  That  one  true  way  of  read- 
ing the  Waverley  Novels  poor  Mr.  Howells 
never  knew.  He  must  have  read  them,  if  he 
has  read  them  at  all,  seated  on  a  high  stool, 
rough  and  hard,  with  teetering  legs,  in  a 
dentist's  parlor.  He  has  had  need  to  draw  a 
prodigal  portion  from  his  Fortunatus's  purse 
of  our  respect  and  affection  to  justify  his 
wayward  obHquity  toward  Scott.  I  wish  that 
I  were  in  a  sailor's  blouse  again,  that  I  might 
shinny  back  into  that  maple-tree,  in  the  com- 
pany of  Mr.  Howells,  with  Miss  Francis's 
volumes  of  Lockhart  (one  at  a  time),  to  read 
and  re-read  the  story  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
and  feel  again  the  joy  which  comes  from  the 
perusal  of  a  biography  written  by  a  wise 
lover  and  edited  by  a  wise  disciple,  with  no 
break  in  the  chain  of  affection  between  us 
and  the  object  of  oui-  veneration.  Perhaps 
Miss  Francis  would  do  us  the  honor  to  take 
a  ladder  and  join  our  party.  But  youth  and 
jam  and  gillyflowers  are  luxuries  soon  spent, 
and  Miss  Francis  has  done  her  best  to  make 
amends  for  their  evanescence.  She  has  done 
a  pubHc  kindness,  and  she  has  had  a  double 


16  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

reward,  first,  in  living  in  familiar  converse 
witli  Scott's  spirit,  second,  in  the  thanks  which 
must  come  to  her  thick  and  fast  from  all 
Scott  lovers. 

We  might  well  wish  that  every  young  man 
and  every  boy  were  reading  these  big-printed 
volumes,  adorned  with  pictures  of  our  hero, 
of  his  friends,  both  men  and  dogs,  and  of 
the  places  where  he  lived.  Let  a  man  econo- 
mize on  his  sons'  clothes,  on  their  puddings 
and  toys,  but  the  wise  father  is  prodigal  with 
books.  A  good  book  should  have  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  its  rank,  it  should  be- 
tray its  gentle  condition  to  the  most  casual 
beholder,  so  that  he  who  sees  it  on  a  shelf 
shall  be  tempted  to  stretch  forth  his  hand, 
and  having  grasped  this  fruit  of  an  innocent 
tree  of  knowledge,  shall  eat,  digest,  and  be- 
come a  wiser,  a  happier,  and  a  better  man 

or  boy. 

II 

Without  meaning  to  disparage  the  Future, 
—  it  will  have  its  flatterers,  —  or  the  Pre- 
sent, which  is  so  importunately  with  us  al- 
ways, there  is  much  reason  with  those  who 
think  that  the  home  of  poetry  is  in  the  Past. 
There  our  sentiments  rest,  like  rays  of  light 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  17 

wliich  fall  through  storied  windows  and  lie 
in  colored  melancholy  upon  ancient  tombs. 
That  which  was  once  a  poor,  barren  Present, 
no  better  than  our  own,  gains  richness  and 
mystery,  and,  as  it  drifts  through  twilight 
shades  beyond  the  disturbing  reach  of  hu- 
man recollection,  grows  in  refinement,  in 
tenderness,  in  nobility.  Memory  is  the  great 
purgatory ;  in  it  the  commonness,  the  trivi- 
ality of  daily  happenings  become  cleansed 
and  ennobled,  and  our  petty  lives,  gliding 
back  into  the  Eden  from  which  they  seem  to 
issue,  become  altogether  innocent  and  beau- 
tiful. 

In  this  world  of  memory  there  is  an  aris- 
tocracy ;  there  are  ephemeral  things  and  long- 
lived  things,  there  is  existence  in  every  grade 
of  duration,  but  almost  all  on  this  great  back- 
ward march  gain  in  beauty  and  interest.  It 
is  so  in  the  memory  of  poets,  it  is  so  with 
everybody.  There  is  a  fairy,  benevolent  and 
solemn,  who  presides  over  memory ;  she  is 
capricious  and  fantastic,  too,  and  busies  her- 
self with  the  little  as  well  as  with  the  big 
thinjrs  of  life.  If  we  look  back  on  our 
boarding-school  days,  what  do  we  remem- 
ber ?     Certainly  not  our  lessons,  nor  the  re- 


18  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

bukes  of  our  weary  teachers,  nor  the  once 
everlasting  study  hour  ;  but  we  recall  every 
detail  of  the  secret  descent  down  the  fire- 
escape  to  the  village  pastry-cook's,  where, 
safeguarded  by  a  system  of  signals  stretch- 
ing continuous  to  the  point  of  danger,  we 
hurriedly  swallowed  creamcakes,  Washing- 
ton pies,  raspberry  turnovers,  and  then  with 
smeared  lips  and  skulking  gait  stealthily 
crept  and  climbed  back  to  a  sleep  such  as 
few  of  the  just  enjoy. 

This  fairy  of  memory  was  potent  with 
Walter  Scott.  He  loved  the  Past,  he  never 
spoke  of  it  but  with  admiration  and  respect, 
he  studied  it,  explored  it,  honored  it;  not 
the  personal  Past,  which  our  egotism  loves, 
but  the  great  Past  of  his  countrymen.  This 
sentiment  is  the  master  quaHty  in  his  nov- 
els, and  gives  them  their  pecuhar  interest. 
There  have  been  plenty  of  historical  novels, 
but  none  others  bear  those  tender  marks 
of  filial  affection  which  characterize  the  Wa- 
verley  Novels. 

There  is  another  quality  in  Scott  closely 
connected  with  his  feehng  for  the  Past, 
which  we  in  America,  with  our  democratic 
doctrines,  find  it  more  difficult  to  appreciate 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  19 

justly.  This  quality,  respect  for  rank,  —  a 
very  inadequate  and  inexact  phrase,  —  is 
part  and  parcel  of  a  social  condition  very 
different  from  our  own.  Scott  had  an  open, 
generous  admiration  for  that  diversity  which 
gave  free  play  to  the  virtues  of  loyalty  and 
gratitude  on  one  side,  and  of  protection  and 
sohcitude  on  the  other.  The  Scottish  laird 
and  his  cotters  had  reciprocal  duties ;  instead 
of  crying  "  Each  man  for  himself !  "  they 
enjoyed  their  mutual  dependence.  The  tie 
of  chieftain  and  clansman  bore  no  great  dis- 
similarity to  that  of  father  and  son,  new 
affections  were  called  out,  a  gilHe  took  pride 
in  his  chief,  and  the  chief  was  fond  of  his 
gillie. 

Scott's  respect  for  rank  was  as  far  removed 
from  snobbery  as  he  from  Hecuba;  it  was 
not  only  devoid  of  all  meanness,  but  it  had 
a  childlike,  a  solemn,  and  admirable  element, 
a  kind  of  acceptance  of  society  as  established 
by  the  hand  of  God.  Added  to  this  solemn 
acceptance  was  his  artistic  pleasure  in  the 
picturesque  variety  and  gradation  of  rank, 
as  in  a  prospect  where  the  ground  rises  from 
flatness,  over  undulating  meadows,  to  roll- 
ing hills  and  ranges  of  mountains.     It  is  ex- 


20  LOCKHART'S  LIFE   OF  SCOTT 

hilarating  to  behold  even  seeming  greatness, 
and  the  perspective  of  rank  throws  into  high 
relief  persons  of  birth  and  office,  and  cun- 
ningly produces  the  effect  of  greatness. 
That  patriotism  which  clings  to  flag  or  king, 
with  Scott  attached  itself  to  the  social  order. 
He  was  intensely  loyal  to  the  structure  of 
society  in  which  he  lived,  not  because  he 
was  happy  and  prosperous  under  it,  but  be- 
cause to  him  it  was  noble  and  beautiful. 
When  a  project  for  innovations  in  the  law 
courts  was  proposed,  he  was  greatly  moved. 
"  No,  no,"  said  he  to  Jeffrey,  "  little  by  lit- 
tle, whatever  your  wishes  may  be,  you  will 
destroy  and  undermine,  until  nothing  of  what 
makes  Scotland  Scotland  shall  remain  ;  "  and 
the  tears  gushed  down  his  cheeks.  The 
social  system  of  clanship,  "  We  Scots  are  a 
clannish  body,"  made  this  sentiment  easy; 
he  felt  toward  his  chief  and  his  clan  as  a 
veteran  feels  toward  his  colonel  and  his  regi- 
ment. 

To  Scott's  historic  sentiment  and  tender- 
ness of  feeling  for  the  established  social 
order  was  added  a  love  of  place,  begotten 
of  associations  with  pleasant  Teviotdale,  the 
Tweed,  Leader  Haughs,  the  Braes  of  Yar- 


LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF  SCOTT  21 

row,  bequeathed  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. We  Americans,  men  of  migratory 
habits,  who  do  not  live  where  our  fathers 
have  hved,  or,  if  so,  pull  their  houses  down 
that  we  may  build  others  with  modern  lux- 
ury, are  strangers  to  the  deep  sentiment 
which  a  Scotsman  cherishes  for  his  home ; 
—  not  the  mere  stones  and  timber,  which 
keep  him  dry  and  warm,  but  the  hearth  at 
which  his  mother  and  his  forefathers  sat  and 
took  their  ease  after  the  labor  of  the  day,  the 
ancient  trees  about  the  porch,  the  heather 
and  honeysuckle,  the  highroad  down  which 
galloped  the  post  with  news  of  Waterloo  and 
Culloden,  the  little  brooks  of  border  min- 
strelsy, and  the  mountains  of  legend  ;  we  do 
not  share  his  inward  feeling  that  his  soul  is 
bound  to  the  soul  of  the  place  by  some  rite 
celebrated  long  before  his  birth,  that  for 
better  or  worse  they  two  are  mated,  and  not 
without  some  hidden  injury  can  anything 
but  death  part  them.  Perhaps  such  feelings 
are  childish,  they  certainly  are  not  modish 
according  to  our  American  notions,  but  over 
those  who  entertain  them  they  are  royally 
tyrannical.  It  was  so  with  Scott,  and  though 
when  left  to  ourselves  we  may  not  feel  that 


22  LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF   SCOTT 

feeling,  he  teaches  us  a  lively  sympathy  with 
it,  and  gives  us  a  deeper  desire  to  have  what 
we  may  really  call  a  home. 

Scott  also  possessed  a  great  theatrical  im- 
agination. He  looked  on  life  as  from  an 
upper  window,  and  watched  the  vast  histori- 
cal pageant  march  along;  his  eye  caught 
notable  persons,  dramatic  incidents,  pictur- 
esque episodes,  with  the  skill  of  a  sagacious 
theatre  manager.  Not  the  drama  of  con- 
science, not  the  meetings  and  maladjust- 
ments of  different  temperaments  and  person- 
alities, not  the  whims  of  an  over-civilized 
psychology,  not  the  sensitive  indoor  happen- 
ings of  life  :  but  scenes  that  startle  the  eye, 
alarm  the  ear,  and  keep  every  sense  on  the 
alert ;  the  objective  bustle  and  much  ado 
of  life ;  the  striking  effects  which  contrast 
clothes  as  well  as  character,  bringing  to- 
gether Highlander  and  Lowlander,  Crusader 
and  Saracen,  jesters,  prelates,  turnkeys,  and 
foresters.  That  is  why  the  Waverley  Novels 
divide  honors  wdth  the  theatre  in  a  boy's  life. 
I  can  remember  how  easy  seemed  the  transi- 
tion from  my  thumbed  and  dog-eared  "  Guy 
Mannering "  to  the  front  row  of  the  pit, 
which  my  impatience  reached  in  ample  time  to 


LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF  SCOTT  23 

study  the  curtain  resplendent  with  Boccaccio's 
garden  before  it  was  lifted  on  a  wonderful 
world  of  romance  wherein  the  jeune  premier 
stepped  forward  like  Frank  Osbaldistone,  Sir 
Kenneth,  or  any  of  "  my  insipidly  imbecile 
young  men,"  as  Scott  called  them,  to  play 
his  difficult,  ungrateful  part,  just  as  they 
did,  with  awkwardness  and  self-conscious  in- 
ability, while  the  audience  passed  him  by,  as 
readers  do  in  the  Waverley  Novels,  to  gaze 
on  the  glittering  mise  en  scene,  and  watch 
the  real  heroes  of  the  piece. 

The  melodramatic  theatre  indicates  certain 
fundamental  truths  of  human  nature.  We 
have  inherited  traits  of  the  savage,  we  de- 
light in  crimson  and  sounding  brass,  in  sol- 
diers and  gypsies,  nor  can  we  conceal,  if  we 
would,  another  and  nearer  ancestry,  "  The 
child  is  father  to  the  man :  "  the  laws  of 
childhood  govern  us  still,  and  it  is  to  this 
common  nature  of  Child  and  Man  that  Scott 
appeals  so  strongly. 

"  Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife! 
To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 
One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name." 

Scott  was  a  master  of  the  domain  of  simple 


24  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

theatrical  drama.  What  is  there  more  effec- 
tive than  his  bravado  scenes,  which  we  watch 
with  that  secret  sympathy  for  bragging  with 
which  w^e  used  to  watch  the  big  boys  at 
school,  for  we  know  that  the  biggest  words 
will  be  seconded  by  deeds.  "  Touch  Ralph 
de  Vipont's  shield  —  touch  the  Hospitaller's 
shield ;  he  is  your  cheapest  bargain."  "  '  Who 
has  dared,'  said  Richard,  laying  his  hands 
upon  the  Austrian  standard,  '  who  has  dared 
to  place  this  paltry  rag  beside  the  banner  of 
England?  '  "  "'  Die,  bloodthirsty  dog! '  said 
Balfour,  ^  die  as  thou  hast  lived  !  die,  Hke  the 
beasts  that  perish  —  hoping  nothing  —  be- 
lieving nothing  '  —  *  And  fearing  nothing  ! ' 
said  Bothwell."  These,  and  a  hundred  such 
passages,  are  very  simple,  but  simple  with  a 
simplicity  not  easy  to  attain  ;  they  touch  the 
young  barbarian  in  us  to  the  quick. 

In  addition  to  these  traits,  Scott  had  that 
shrewd  practical  understanding  which  is  said 
to  mark  the  Scotsman.  Some  acute  contem- 
porary said  that  "  Scott's  sense  was  more 
wonderful  than  his  genius."  In  fact,  his 
sense  is  so  all-pervasive  that  it  often  renders 
the  reader  blind  to  the  imaginative  qualities 
that    spread   their  great  wings  throughout 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  25 

most  of  the  novels.  It  was  this  good  sense 
that  enabled  Scott  to  supply  the  admirable 
framework  of  his  stories,  for  it  taught  him 
to  understand  the  ways  of  men,  —  farmers, 
shopkeepers,  lawyers,  soldiers,  lairds,  gra- 
ziers, smugglers,  —  to  perceive  how  all  parts 
of  society  are  hnked  together,  and  to  trace 
the  social  nerves  that  connect  the  shepherd 
and  the  blacksmith  with  historic  personages. 
Scott  had  great  powers  of  observation,  but 
these  powers,  instead  of  being  allowed  to 
yield  at  their  own  will  to  the  temptation  of 
the  moment,  were  always  under  the  control 
of  good  sense.  This  controlled  observation, 
aided  by  the  extraordinary  healthiness  of  his 
nature,  enabled  him  to  look  upon  life  with 
so  much  largeness,  and  never  suffered  his 
fancy  to  wander  off  and  fasten  on  some  sore 
spot  in  the  body  social,  or  on  some  morbid 
individual ;  but  held  it  fixed  on  healthy  so- 
ciety, on  sanity  and  equilibrium.  Natural, 
healthy  life  always  drew  upon  Scott's  abun- 
dant sympathy.  Dandie  Dinmont,  Mr.  Old- 
buck,  Baillie  Jarvie,  and  a  hundred  more 
show  the  greatest  pigment  of  art,  the  good 
color  of  health.  Open  a  novel  almost  at 
random  and  you  meet  a  sympathetic  under- 


26  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

standing.  For  example,  a  fisherwoman  Is 
pleading  for  a  dram  of  whiskey :  "  Ay,  ay, 
—  it 's  easy  for  your  honor,  and  Hke  o'  you 
gentlefolks,  to  say  sae,  that  hae  stouth  and 
routh,  and  fire  and  fending,  and  meat  and 
claith,  and  sit  dry  and  canny  by  the  fireside. 
But  an'  ye  wanted  fire  and  meat  and  dry 
claise,  and  were  deeing  o'  cauld,  and  had  a 
sair  heart,  whilk  is  warst  ava*,  wi'  just  tip- 
pence  in  your  pouch,  wadna  ye  be  glad  to 
buy  a  dram  wi'  it,  to  be  eliding  and  claise, 
and  a  supper  and  heart's  ease  into  the  bar- 
gain till  the  morn's  morning  ?  " 

It  is  easy  to  disparage  common  sense  and 
the  art  of  arousing  boyish  interest,  just  as  it 
is  easy  to  disparage  romantic  affections  for 
the  past,  for  rank,  and  for  place ;  but  Scott 
had  a  power  which  transfigured  common 
sense,  theatrical  imagination,  and  conserva- 
tive sentiments,  —  Scott  was  a  poet.  His 
poetic  genius  has  given  him  one  great  ad- 
vantage over  all  other  English  novelists.  As 
we  think  of  the  famous  names,  Fieldiag, 
Richardson,  Jane  Austen,  Thackeray,  Dick- 
ens, Charlotte  Bronte,  George  Eliot,  Mere- 
dith ;  according  to  our  taste,  our  education, 
or  our  whimsies,  we  prefer  this  quality  in 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  27 

one,  we  enjoy  that  in  another,  and  we  may, 
as  many  do,  put  others  above  Scott  in  the 
hierarchy  of  English  noveUsts,  but  nobody, 
not  even  the  most  intemperate,  will  compare 
any  one  of  them  with  Scott  as  a  poet.  Scott 
had  great  lyrical  gifts.  It  has  been  remarked 
how  many  of  his  poems  Mr.  Palgrave  has 
inserted  in  the  "  Golden  Treasury."  Pal- 
grave did  well.  There  are  few  poems  that 
have  the  peculiar  beauty  of  Scott's  lyrics. 
Take,  for  example,  — 

"  A  weary  lot  is  thine,  fair  maid, 

A  weary  lot  is  thine ! 
To  pull  the  thorn  thy  brow  to  braid, 

And  press  the  rue  for  wine. 
A  lightsome  eye,  a  soldier's  mien, 

A  feather  of  the  blue, 
A  doublet  of  the  Lincoln  green  — 

No  more  of  me  you  knew, 

My  love ! 

No  more  of  me  you  knew." 

What  maiden  could  resist 

"  A  lightsome  eye,  a  soldier's  mien, 
A  feather  of  the  blue  ?  " 

Scott's  poetic  nature,  deHcate  and  charm- 
ing as  it  is  in  his  lyrics,  picturesque  and 
vigorous  as  it  is  in  his  long  poems,  finds  its 
sturdier  and  most  natural  expression  in  his 
novels ;  in  them  it  refines  the  prodigal  dis- 


28  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

play  of  pictorial  life,  it  bestows  lightness  and 
vividness,  it  gives  an  atmosphere  of  beauty, 
and  a  joyful  exhilaration  of  enfranchise- 
ment from  the  commonplace ;  it  mingles  the 
leaven  of  poetry  into  ordinary  life,  and 
causes  what  we  call  romance.  Take,  for 
example,  a  subject  like  war.  War,  as  it  is, 
commissariat,  dysentery,  mule- trains,  six- 
pounders,  disemboweled  boys,reconcentration, 
water-cure,  lying,  and  swindhng,  has  been 
described  by  Zola  and  Tolstoi  with  the  skill 
of  that  orenius  which  is  faithful  to  the  naked- 
ness  of  fact.  But  for  the  miUions  who  do 
not  go  to  the  battlefield,  hospital,  or  burial- 
ditch,  war  is  another  matter  ;  for  them  it  is 
a  brilHant  affair  of  colors,  drums,  uniforms, 
courage,  enthusiasm,  heroism,  and  victory  ; 
it  is  the  most  brilliant  of  stage-shows,  the 
most  excitins:  of  gfames.  This  is  the  familiar 
conception  of  war ;  and  Scott  has  expressed 
his  thorough  sympathy  with  immense  poeti- 
cal skill.  Let  the  sternest  Quaker  read  the 
battle  scene  in  "  Marmion,"  and  he  will  feel 
his  temper  glow  with  warlike  ardor  ;  and  the 
fighting  in  the  novels,  for  instance  the  battle 
in  "  Old  Mortality,"  is  still  better.  In  like 
manner  in  the  pictures  of  Highland  life  the 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  29 

style  may  be  poor,  the  workmanship  careless, 
but  we  are  always  aware  that  what  we  read 
has  been  written  by  one  who  looked  upon 
what  he  describes  with  a  poet's  eye. 

The  poetry  that  animates  the  Waverley 
Novels  was  not,  as  with  some  men,  a  rare 
accomplishment  kept  for  literary  use,  but  lay 
deep  in  Scott's  life.  As  a  young  man  he 
fell  in  love  with  a  lady  who  loved  and  mar- 
ried another,  and  all  his  life  her  memory, 
ethereaUzed  no  doubt  after  the  manner  of 
poets  and  lovers,  stayed  with  him,  so  that 
despite  the  greatest  worldly  success  his  finer 
happiness  lay  in  imagination.  But  as  he 
appeared  at  Abbotsford,  gayest  among  the 
gay,  prince  of  good  feUows,  what  comrade 
conjectured  that  the  poet  had  not  attained 
his  heart's  desire? 

Ill 

It  is  easy  to  find  fault  with  Scott ;  he  has 
taken  no  pains  to  hide  the  bounds  of  his 
genius.  He  was  careless  to  slovenliness,  he 
hardly  ever  corrected  his  pages,  he  worked 
with  a  glad  animal  energy,  writing  two  or 
three  hours  before  breakfast  every  morn- 
ing, chiefly  in  order  to  free  himself  from  the 


30  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

pressure  of  his  fancy.  So  lightly  did  he  go 
to  work  that  when  taken  sick  after  writing 
"The  Bride  of  Lammermoor  "  he  forgot  all 
but  the  outline  of  the  plot.  His  pen  coursed 
like  a  greyhound  ;  at  times  it  lost  the  scent 
of  the  story  and  strayed  away  into  tedious 
prologue  and  peroration,  or  in  endless  talk, 
and  then,  the  scent  regained,  it  dashed  on 
into  a  scene  of  unequaled  vigor  and  imagina- 
tion. There  are  few  speeches  that  can  rank 
with  that  of  Jeanie  Deans  to  Queen  Caroline : 
"  But  when  the  hour  of  trouble  comes  to  the 
mind  or  to  the  body  —  and  seldom  may  it 
visit  your  Leddyship  —  and  when  the  hour 
of  death  comes,  that  comes  to  high  and  low 
—  lang  and  late  may  it  be  yours  —  0  my 
Leddy,  then  it  isna  what  we  hae  dune  for 
oursells,  but  what  we  hae  dune  for  others, 
that  we  think  on  maist  pleasantly.  And  the 
thoughts  that  ye  hae  intervened  to  spare  the 
puir  thing's  life  will  be  sweeter  in  that  hour, 
come  when  it  may,  than  if  a  word  of  your 
mouth  could  hang  the  haill  Porteous  mob  at 
the  tail  of  ae  tow." 

Scott  was  a  vigorous,  happy  man,  who 
rated  life  far  higher  than  literature,  and 
looked  upon  novel-writing  as  a  money-getting 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  31 

operation.  "  *  I  'd  rather  be  a  kitten  and  cry 
Mew,'  "  he  said,  "  than  write  the  best  poetry 
in  the  world  on  condition  of  laying  aside 
common  sense  in  the  ordinary  transactions 
and  business  of  the  world."  He  would  have 
entertained  pity,  not  untouched  by  scorn,  for 
those  novelists  who  apply  to  a  novel  the  rules 
that  govern  a  lyric,  and  come  home  fatigued 
from  a  day  spent  in  seeking  an  adjective. 
Scott  wrote  with  what  is  called  inspiration ; 
when  he  had  written,  his  mind  left  his  manu- 
script and  turned  to  something  new.  No 
doubt  we  wish  that  it  had  been  otherwise, 
that  Scott,  in  addition  to  his  imaginative 
power,  had  also  possessed  the  faculty  of  self- 
criticism  ;  perhaps  Nature  has  adopted  some 
self-denying  ordinance,  that,  where  she  is  so 
prodigal  with  her  right  hand,  she  will  be 
somewhat  niggard  with  the  left.  We  are 
hard  to  please  if  we  demand  that  she  shall 
add  the  delicate  art  of  Stevenson  to  the  virile 
power  of  Walter  Scott. 

There  is  a  second  fault ;  archaeologists 
tell  us  that  no  man  ever  spoke  like  King 
Richard,  Ivanhoe,  and  Locksley.  Scott,  how- 
ever, has  erred  in  good  company.  Did  Moses 
and  David  speak  as  the  Old  Testament  nar- 


32  LOCKHART'S   LIFE   OF  SCOTT 

rates  ?  Did  knights-errant  ever  utter  such 
words  as  Malory  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Perceval  ?  Or  did  the  real  Antony  have 
the  eloquence  of  Shakespeare?  Historical 
and  archaeological  mistakes  are  serious  in 
history  and  archaeology,  and  shockingly  dis- 
figure examination  papers,  but  in  novels  the 
standards  are  different.  Perhaps  men  learned 
in  demonology  are  put  out  of  patience  by 
"  Paradise  Lost "  and  the  "  Inferno,"  and 
scholars  in  fairy  lore  vex  themselves  over 
Ariel  and  Titania  ;  but  "  Ivanhoe  "  is  like  a 
picture,  which  at  a  few  feet  shows  blotches 
and  daubs,  but  looked  at  from  the  proper 
distance,  shows  the  correct  outline  and  the 
true  color.  The  raw  conjunction  of  Saxon 
and  Norman,  the  story  how  the  two  great 
stocks  of  Englishmen  went  housekeeping 
together,  is  told  better  than  in  any  history. 
So  it  is  with  "  The  Talisman."  The  picture 
of  the  crusading  invasion  of  Palestine  is  no 
doubt  wholly  incorrect  in  all  details,  and  yet 
what  book  equals  it  in  enabling  us  to  under- 
stand the  romantic  attitude  of  Europe  and  the 
great  popular  Christian  sentiment  which  ex- 
pressed itself  in  unchristian  means  and  built 
so  differently  from  what  it  knew  ?     But  we 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE   OF  SCOTT  33 

need  not  quarrel  in  defense  of  "  Ivanhoe," 
or  "  Quentin  Durward,"  or  "  The  Talisman." 
Unquestionably  the  Scottish  novels  are  the 
best,  "  Rob  Roy,"  "  Guy  Mannering,"  "  The 
Antiquary,"  "  Old  Mortality,"  "  The  Heart 
of  Mid-Lothian ;  "  in  them  we  find  portraiture 
of  character,  drawn  with  an  art  that  must 
satisfy  the  most  difficult  advocate  of  studies 
from  life ;  and  probably  all  of  Scott's  famous 
characters  were  drawn  from  life. 

A  more  serious  charge  is  that  Scott  is  not 
interested  in  the  soul;  that  the  higher  do- 
mains of  human  faculties,  love  and  religion, 
are  treated  not  at  all  or  else  inadequately. 
At  first  sight  there  seems  to  be  much  justice 
in  this  complaint,  for  if  our  minds  run  over 
the  names  of  the  Waverley  Novels,  —  the 
very  titles,  like  a  romantic  tune,  play  a  mel- 
ody of  youth,  —  we  remember  no  love  scene 
of  power,  nor  any  lovable  woman  except 
Diana  Vernon,  and  the  religion  in  them  is 
too  much  like  that  which  fills  up  our  own 
Sunday  mornings  between  the  fishballs  of 
breakfast  and  the  cold  roast  beef  of  dinner. 
Carlyle  has  expressed  his  dissatisfaction  with 
Scott's  shortcomings,  after  the  manner  of  an 
eloquent  advocate  who  sets  forth  his  case, 


34  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

and  leaves  the  jury  to  get  at  justice  as  best 
they  may.  He  denies  that  Scott  touches  the 
spiritual  or  ethical  side  of  life,  and  therefore 
condemns  him.  But  Carlyle  does  not  look 
for  ethics  except  in  exhortations,  nor  for 
spiritual  life  except  in  a  vociferous  crying 
after  God ;  whereas  the  soul  is  wayward  and 
strays  outside  of  metaphysics  and  of  right- 
eous indignation.  That  Scott  himself  was  a 
good  man,  in  a  very  high  and  solemn  signifi- 
cance of  those  words,  cannot  be  questioned 
by  any  one  who  has  read  his  biography  and 
letters.  No  shadow  of  self-deception  clouded 
his  mind  when,  in  moments  of  great  physical 
pain,  he  said,  "  I  should  be  a  great  fool, 
and  a  most  ungrateful  wretch,  to  complain 
of  such  inflictions  as  these.  My  life  has 
been  in  all  its  private  and  pubhc  relations  as 
fortunate,  perhaps,  as  was  ever  lived,  up  to 
this  period;  and  whether  pain  or  misfortune 
may  lie  behind  the  dark  curtain  of  futurity, 
I  am  already  a  sufficient  debtor  to  the  bounty 
of  Providence  to  be  resigned  to  it ; "  nor 
when  he  thought  he  was  dying,  "  For  my- 
self I  am  unconscious  of  ever  havinof  done 
any  man  an  injury  or  omitted  any  fair  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  any  man  a  benefit."     Every 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  35 

one  knows  his  last  words,  "  Lockhart,  be  a 
good  man  —  be  virtuous  —  be  religious  — 
be  a  good  man.  Nothing  else  will  give  you 
any  comfort  when  you  come  to  lie  here." 

Ethics  have  two  methods :  one  is  the  way  of 
the  great  Hebrew  prophets  who  cry,  "  Woe 
to  the  children  of  this  world !  Repent,  re- 
pent !  "  and  Carlyle's  figure,  as  he  follows 
their  strait  and  narrow  way,  shows  very 
heroic  on  the  skyline  of  life ;  but  there  is 
still  room  for  those  teachers  of  ethics  who 
follow  another  method,  who  do  not  fix  their 
eyes  on  the  anger  of  God,  but  on  the  beauti- 
ful world  which  He  has  created.  To  them 
humanity  is  not  vile,  nor  this  earth  a  magni- 
fied Babylon  ;  they  look  for  virtue  and  they 
find  it ;  they  see  childhood  ruddy-cheeked 
and  light-hearted,  youth  idealized  by  the 
enchantment  of  first  love ;  they  rejoice  in  a 
wonderful  world ;  they  laugh  with  those  who 
laugh,  weep  with  mourners,  dance  with  the 
young,  are  crutches  to  the  old,  tell  stories  to 
the  moping,  throw  jests  to  the  jolly,  comfort 
cold  hearts,  and  leave  everywhere  a  ripening 
warmth  like  sunlight,  and  a  faith  that  happi- 
ness is  its  own  justification.  This  was  the 
way  of  Walter  Scott. 


36  LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT 

No  doubt  spiritual  life  can  express  itself 
in  cries  and  prophecies,  yet  for  most  men, 
looking  over  chequered  lives,  or  into  the  re- 
cesses of  their  own  hearts,  the  spiritual  life 
is  embodied  not  in  loud  exhortations  and 
threats,  but  rather  in  honor,  loyalty,  truth ; 
and  those  who  let  this  behef  appear  in  their 
daily  life  are  entitled  to  the  name,  toward 
which  they  are  greatly  indifferent,  of  spiritual 
teachers.  Honor,  loyalty,  truth,  were  very 
dear  to  Walter  Scott ;  his  love  for  them  ap- 
pears throughout  his  biography.  He  says, 
"  It  is  our  duty  to  fight  on,  doing  what  good 
we  can  and  trusting  to  God  Almighty,  whose 
grace  ripens  the  seeds  we  commit  to  the 
earth,  that  our  benefactions  shall  bear  fruit." 
Among  the  good  seeds  Scott  committed  to 
the  earth  are  his  novels,  which,  if  they  are 
not  spiritual,  according  to  the  significance 
of  that  word  as  used  by  prophet  and  priest, 
have  that  in  them  which  has  helped  genera- 
tions of  young  men  to  admire  manhness, 
purity,  fair  play,  and  honor,  and  has  strength- 
ened their  inward  resolutions  to  think  no 
unworthy  thoughts,  to  do  no  unworthy 
deeds.  Literature,  not  preaching,  has  been 
the  great  civihzer ;    if  it  has  not  been  as 


LOCKHART'S  LIFE  OF  SCOTT  37 

quick  to  kindle  enthusiasm  for  large  causes, 
it  has  acted  with  greater  sureness  and  has 
built  more  permanently;  and  of  all  the  great 
names  in  literature  as  a  power  for  good,  who 
shall  come  next  to  Shakespeare,  Dante,  and 
Cervantes,  if  not  Walter  Scott  ? 


D'ANNUNZTO,  NOVELIST 


D'ANNUNZIO,   NOVELIST 

" '  Tom  Jones  '  and  Gray's  *  Elegy  in  a 
Country  Churchyard  '  are  both  excellent,  and 
much  spoke  of  by  both  sex,  particularly  by  the 
men."  This  statement  by  Marjorie  Fleming 
has  abundant  confirmation  in  the  history  of 
English  literature  for  the  last  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  And  although  this  nineteenth 
century  of  ours  has  enjoyed  throwing  a  great 
many  stones  at  the  eighteenth,  we  must  ac- 
knowledge that  we  cannot  find  in  English 
literature  another  novel  and  another  poem 
that,  taken  together,  give  us  a  fuller  know- 
ledge of  English-speaking  men.  There  are 
times,  in  the  twilights  of  the  day,  and  of  the 
year,  in  the  closing  in  of  fife,  when  we  all 
contemplate  death ;  and  the  Elegy  tells  all 
our  thoughts  in  lines  that  possess  our  memo- 
ries like  our  mothers'  voices.  It  shows  sim- 
ple folk  in  sight  of  death,  calm,  natural,  seri- 
ous, high-minded.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Cato 
the  younger,  the  cavaliers  of  the  Light  Bri- 


42  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

gade,  may  have  thought  upon  death  after 
other  fashions,  but  for  most  of  us  the 
thoughts  of  our  hearts  have  been  portrayed 
by  Gray. 

"  Tom  Jones  "  is  the  contemplation  of  life 
in  ordinary  Englishmen.  In  the  innocent  days 
before  Mr.  Hardy  and  some  other  writers  of 
distinction  "  Tom  Jones  "  was  reputed  coarse, 
—  one  of  those  classics  that  should  find  their 
places  on  a  shelf  well  out  of  reach  of  young 
arms.  The  manners  of  Squire  Western  and 
of  Tom  himself  are  such  as  often  are  best 
described  in  the  Squire's  own  language.  But 
who  is  the  man,  as  Thackeray  says,  that  does 
not  feel  freer  after  he  has  read  the  book? 
Fielding,  in  his  rough  and  ready  way,  has 
described  men  as  they  are,  made  of  the  dust 
of  the  earth,  and  that  not  carefully  chosen. 
We  no  longer  read  it  aloud  to  our  families, 
as  was  the  custom  of  our  great-grandfathers ; 
but  we  do  not  all  read  Mr.  Hardy  aloud  to 
our  daughters.  "  Tom  Jones  "  is  a  big,  strong, 
fearless,  honest  book  ;  it  gives  us  a  hearty 
slap  on  the  back,  congratulating  us  that  we 
are  alive,  and  we  accept  the  congratulation 
with  pleasure.  Its  richness  is  astonishing. 
It  has  flowed  down  through  English  litera- 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  43 

ture  like  a  fertilizing  Nile.  In  it  we  find 
the  beginnings  of  Sheridan,  Dickens,  Thack- 
eray, George  Eliot.  In  it  we  have  those 
wonderful  conversations  between  Square  and 
Thwackum,  which  remind  us  of  Don  Quixote 
and  Sancho  Panza.  Mrs.  Seagrim  talks  for 
half  a  page,  and  we  hold  our  noses  against 
the  smells  in  her  kitchen. 

The  power  of  the  book  is  its  eulogy  upon 
life.  Is  it  not  wretched  to  be  stocks,  stones, 
tenants  of  Westminster  Abbey,  mathemati- 
cians, or  young  gentlemen  lost  in  philoso- 
phy ?  Is  not  the  exhilaration  of  wine  good  ? 
Is  not  dinner  worth  the  eating  ?  Do  not 
young  women  make  a  most  potent  and 
charming  government  ?  Fielding  takes  im- 
mense pleasure  in  the  foolishness,  in  the  foi- 
bles of  men,  and  he  finds  amusement  in  their 
vices,  but  over  virtue  and  vice,  over  wisdom 
and  folly,  he  always  insists  upon  the  joy  and 
the  value  of  life. 

When  we  shall  have  re-read  "  Tom  Jones  " 
and  repeated  Gray's  Elegy  to  ourselves,  then 
we  shall  be  in  the  mood  in  which  we  can 
best  determine  the  value  of  foreijrn  novels 
for  us.  And  so,  with  this  avowal  of  our 
point  of  view,  we  approach  the  stories  of  the 


41  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

distinguished  Italian  novelist,  Gabriele  d'An- 
nunzio. 

Men  of  action  who  apply  themselves  to 
literature  are  hkely  to  have  a  generous  con- 
fidence that  skill  will  follow  courage;  that  if 
they  write,  the  capacity  to  write  effectively 
will  surely  come.  Plays,  novels,  editorials, 
sonnets,  are  written  by  them  straight  upon 
the  impulse.  They  plunge  into  literature  as 
if  it  were  as  buoyant  as  their  spirit,  and 
strike  out  like  young  sea  creatures.  Gabri- 
ele d'Annunzio  is  a  man  of  another  complex- 
\/  ion.  He  is  not  a  man  of  action,  but  of  re- 
flection. He  is  a  student;  he  lives  in  the 
world  of  books.  Through  this  many-colored 
medium  of  literature  he  sees  men  and  wo- 
men ;  but  he  is  saved  from  an  obvious  ar- 
tificiality by  his  sensitiveness  to  books  of 
many  kinds.  He  has  submitted  to  laborious 
discipline ;  he  has  sat  at  the  feet  of  many 
masters.  His  early  schooling  may  be  seen  in 
a  collection  of  stories  published  in  1886  un- 
der the  name  of  the  first,  "  San  Pantaleone." 
One  story  is  in  imitation  of  Verga,  another 
of  de  Maupassant ;  and  in  ''  La  Fattura  "  is 
an  attempt  to  bring  tlie  humor  of  Boccaccio 
into  a  modern  tale.     Even  in  the  '^Decam- 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  ^ 

eron  "  this  renowned  humor  has  neither  affec- 
tion nor  pity  for  father  ;  in  its  own  cradle  it 
mewls  like  an  ill-mannered  foundling.  In 
the  hands  of  d'Annunzio  it  acquires  the  in- 
genuous charm  of  Mr.  Noah  Claypole.  We 
believe  that  d'Annunzio,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, became  aware  of  his  native  an- 
tipathy to  humor,  for  we  have  not  found 
any  other  attempt  at  it  in  his  work.  It  is 
in  this  absence  of  humor  that  we  first  feel 
the  separation  between  d'Annunzio  and  the 
deep  human  feelings.  In  Italian  literature 
there  is  no  joyous,  mellow,  merry  book,  in 
which  as  a  boy  he  might  have  nuzzled  and 
rubbed  off  upon  himself  some  fruitful  pollen. 
One  would  as  soon  expect  to  find  a  portrait 
of  Mr.  Pickwick  by  Botticelli  as  the  spirit  of 
Dickens  in  any  cranny  of  Italian  hterature. 
M.  de  Vogiie  has  said  that  d'Annunzio  is 
born  out  of  time ;  that  in  spirit  he  is  one  of 
the  cinquecentisti.  There  is  something  fero- 
cious and  bitter  in  him.     The  oTeat  human 

o 

law  of  gravitation,  that  draws  man  to  man, 
does  not  affect  him. 

Nevertheless,  these  stories  have  much  vigor 
and  skillfid  description.  In  "  San  Pantale- 
one  "  d'Annunzio  depicts  the  frenzy  and  fierce 


46  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

emotions  of  superstition  in  southern  Italy. 
Savaofe  fanaticism  interests  him.  The  com- 
bination  of  high  imagination  and  the  exalta- 
tion of  delirium  with  the  stupidity  and  igno- 
rance of  beasts  has  a  powerful  attraction  for 
him.  The  union  of  the  intellectual  and  the 
bestial  is  to  him  the  most  remarkable  phe- 
nomenon of  life. 

This  early  book  is  interesting  also  in  that 
it  shows  ideas  in  the  germ  and  in  their  first 
growth  which  are  subsequently  developed  in 
the  novels,  and  in  that  it  betrays  d'Annun- 
zio's  notion  that  impersonality  —  that  deliv- 
erance from  the  frailty  of  humanity  to  which 
he  would  aspire  —  is  an  escape  from  compas- 
sion and  affection,  and  is  most  readily  come 
at  through  contempt. 

D'Annunzio  has  spared  no  pains  to  make 
his  language  as  melodious  and  efficient  an 
instrument  as  he  can.  Italian  prose  has 
never  been  in  the  same  rank  with  Italian 
poetry.  There  have  been  no  great  Italians 
whose  genius  has  forced  Italian  prose  to  bear 
the  stamp  and  impress  of  their  personalities. 
In  the  sixteenth  century  this  prose  was  clear 
and  capable,  but  since  then  it  has  gradually 
shrunk  to  fit  the  thoughts  of  lesser  men. 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  47 

D*Annunzio  has  taken  on  his  back  the  task 
o£  liberating  the  Italian  tongue ;  he  will  give 
it  "  virtue,  manners,  freedom,  power."  Not 
having  within  him  the  necessity  of  utterance, 
not  hurried  on  by  impetuous  talents,  he  has 
applied  himself  to  his  task  with  deliberation 
and  circumspection.  He  has  studied  Boc- 
caccio and  Petrarch  and  many  men  of  old, 
so  that  his  vocabulary  shall  be  full,  and  his 
grammar  as  pure  and  flexible  as  the  genius 
of  the  language  will  permit.  He  purposes 
to  fetch  from  their  hiding-places  Itahan 
words  long  unused,  that  he  shall  be  at  no 
loss  for  means  to  make  plain  the  most  deli- 
cate distinctions  of  meaning.  He  intends 
that  his  thoughts,  which  shall  be  gathered 
from  all  intellectual  Europe,  shall  have  fit 
words  to  house  them. 

At  the  time  of  his  first  novels,  d'Annun- 
zio  turned  to  Paris,  the  capital  of  the  Latin 
world,  as  to  his  natural  school.  In  Paris 
men  of  letters  (let  us  except  a  number  of 
gallant  young  gentlemen  disdainful  of  read- 
ers) begin  by  copying  and  imitation,  that 
they  may  acquire  the  mechanical  parts  of 
their  craft.  They  study  Stendhal,  Flaubert, 
de  Maupassant ;  they  contemplate  a  chapter, 


48  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

they  brood  over  a  soliloquy,  they  grow  lean 
over  a  dialogue.  They  learn  how  the  master 
marshals  his  ideas,  how  he  winds  up  to  his 
climax,  what  tricks  and  devices  he  employs 
to  take  his  reader  prisoner.  From  time  to 
time  voices  protestant  are  raised,  crying  out 
against  the  sacrifice  of  innocent  originality. 
But  the  band  of  the  lettered  marches  on. 
Why  should  they  forego  knowledge  gathered 
together  with  great  pains?  Shall  a  young 
man  turn  against  the  dictionary? 

In  Paris  d'Annunzio  found  a  number  of 
well-established  methods  for  writing  a  novel. 
Some  of  these  methods  have  had  a  power- 
ful influence  upon  him ;  therefore  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  remind  ourselves  of  them,  in 
order  that  we  may  the  better  judge  his  capa- 
city for  original  work  and  for  faithful  imita- 
tion. 

The  first  method  is  simply  that  of  the  old- 
fashioned  novel  of  character  and  manners, 
and  needs  no  description. 

The  second  method,  the  familiar  philo-real 
or  philo-natural,  hardly  may  be  said  to  be  a 
method  for  writing  a  novel ;  it  is  a  mode  of 
writing  what  you  will ;  but  it  has  achieved 
its  reputation  m  the  hands  of  novehsts.    This 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  49 

method  is  supposed  to  require  careful,  pains- 
taking, and  accurate  observation  o£  real  per- 
sons, places,  and  incidents ;  but  in  truth  it 
lets  this  duty  sit  very  lightly  on  its  shoul- 
ders, and  commonly  consists  in  descriptions, 
minute,  elaborate,  prolix.  It  pretends  to  be 
an  ajDotheosis  of  fact ;  it  is  a  verbal  ritual. 
It  has  been  used  by  many  a  man  uncon- 
scious of  schools.  In  practice  it  is  the  most 
efficacious  means  of  causing  the  illusion  of  ^ 
reality  within  the  reach  of  common  men. 
By  half  a  dozen  pages  of  deliberate  and  ex- 
act enumeration  of  outward  parts,  a  man 
may  frequently  produce  as  vivid  and  memory- 
haunting  a  picture  as  a  poet  does  with  a  met- 
aphor or  an  epithet.  M.  Zola,  by  virtue  of 
his  vigor,  his  zeal,  and  his  fecundity,  has  won 
popular  renown  as  leader  of  this  school. 

The  third  method  is  the  psychological. 
It  consists  in  the  delineation  in  detail  of 
thoughts  and  feelings  instead  of  actions,  the 
inward  and  unseen  in  place  of  the  outward 
and  visible.  The  novelist  professes  an  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  wheels,  cogs,  cranks 
of  the  brain,  and  of  the  airy  portraiture  of 
the  mind,  and  he  describes  them  with  an 
embellishment  of  scientific  phrase,  lettmg  the 


50  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

outward  acts  take  care  of  themselves  as  best 
they  may.  The  danger  of  this  method  is 
lest  the  portrayal  of  psychic  states  constitute 
the  novel,  and  lest  the  plot  and  the  poor 
little  incidents  squeeze  in  with  much  dis- 
comfort. Perhaps  M.  Bourget  is  the  most 
distinguished  member  of  this  school. 

The  fourth  mode  is  that  of  the  Symholistes. 
These  writers  are  not  wholly  purged  from 
all  desire  for  self-assertion  ;  they  wish  room 
wherein  openly  to  display  themselves,  and  to 
this  end  they  have  withdrawn  apart  out  of 
the  shadow  of  famous  names.  They  assert 
that  they  stand  for  freedom  from  old  saws ; 
that  the  philosophic  doctrine  of  idealism  up- 
sets all  theories  based  upon  the  reality  of 
matter  ;  that  the  business  of  art  is  to  use  the 
imperfect  means  of  expression  at  its  com- 
mand to  suggest  and  indicate  ideas ;  that 
character,  action,  incidents,  are  but  symbols 
of  ideas.  They  hold  individuality  sacred, 
and  define  it  to  be  that  which  man  has  in 
himself  unshared  by  any  other,  and  deny  the 
name  to  all  that  he  has  in  common  with 
other  men.  Therefore  this  individuality, 
being  but  a  small  part,  a  paring,  as  it  were, 
of  an  individual,  shows  maimed  and  unnat- 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  61 

iiral.  And  thus  tliey  run  foul  of  seeming 
opposites,  both  the  individual  and  also  the 
abstract ;  for  the  revered  symbol  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  an  essence  abstracted 
from  the  motley  company  of  individuals,  fil- 
tered and  refined,  which  returns  decked  out 
in  the  haberdashery  of  generalities,  under 
the  baptismal  name  of  symbol.  In  order  to 
facilitate  this  latter  process  of  extracting  and 
detaching  unity  from  multiplicity,  they  mur- 
mur songs  of  mystic  sensuality,  as  spiritual- 
ists burn  tapers  of  frankincense  at  the  dis- 
entanglement of  a  spirit  from  its  fellows  in 
the  upper  or  nether  world.  One  of  the  best 
known  of  these  is  Maurice  Maeterlinck. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  doctrine  that  runs 
across  these  various  methods,  like  one  pat- 
tern across  cloths  of  divers  materials,  which 
affects  them  all.  It  is  that  the  writer  shall 
persistently  obtrude  himself  upon  the  reader. 
Stated  in  this  blunt  fashion,  the  doctrine  is 
considered  indecent ;  it  is  not  acknowledged ; 
and,  in  truth,  these  Frenchmen  do  not  reveal 
their  personality.  It  may  indeed  be  doubted 
if  they  have  any  such  encumbrance.  In  its 
place  they  have  a  bunch  of  theories  tied  up 
with  the  ribbon  of  their  literary  experience ; 


52  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

and  the  exhalations  of  it,  as  if  it  were  a 
bunch  of  flowers,  they  suffer  to  transpire 
through  their  pages.  These  theories  are  not 
of  the  writer's  own  making ;  they  are  the 
notions  made  popular  in  Paris  by  a  number 
of  distinguished  men,  of  whom  the  most 
notable  are  Taine  and  Renan.  The  inevi- 
table sequence  of  cause  and  effect  and  its 
attendant  corollaries,  vigorously  asserted  and 
reiterated  by  M.  Taine,  and  the  amiable  irony 
of  M.  Renan,  have  had  success  with  men  of 
letters  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  intel- 
lectual value.  Their  theories  have  influenced 
novels  very  much,  and  hfe  very  little.  Why 
should  the  dogfmas  of  determinism  and  of 
unskeptical  skepticism  affect  men  in  a  novel 
more  obviously  than  they  affect  men  in  the 
street  ? 

Into  this  world  of  Parisian  letters,  in 
among  these  literary  methods,  walked  young 
d'Annunzio,  sensitive,  ambitious,  detached 
from  tradition,  with  his  ten  talents  wrapped 
up  in  an  embroidered  and  scented  napkin, 
with  his  docile  apprentice  habit  of  mind,  and 
straightway  set  himself,  with  passion  for  art 
and  the  ardor  of  youth,  to  the  task  of  ac- 
quiring these  French  methods,  that  he  should 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  63 

become  the  absolute  master  of  his  talents, 
and  be  able  to  put  them  out  at  the  highest 
rate  of  usury.  Young-  enough  to  be  seduced 
by  the  blandishments  of  novelty,  he  passed 
over  the  old-fashioned  way  of  describing 
character,  and  studied  the  methods  of  the 
reaHsts,  the  psychologists,  the  symbolists. 
With  his  clear,  cool  head  he  very  soon  mas- 
tered their  methods,  and  in  the  achievement 
quickened  and  strengthened  his  artistic  capa- 
cities, his  precision,  his  sense  of  proportion, 
his  understanding  of  form.  But  the  nurture 
of  his  art  magnified  and  strengthened  his 
lack  of  humanity.  Lack  of  human  sympathy 
is  a  common  characteristic  of  young  men 
who  are  rich  in  enthusiasm  for  the  written 
word,  the  delineated  line,  the  carving  upon 
the  cornice.  Devotion  to  the  minute  refine- 
ments of  art  seems  to  leave  no  room  in  their 
hearts  for  human  kindliness.  The  unripe- 
ness of  youth,  overwork,  disgust  with  the 
common  in  human  beings,  help  to  separate 
them  from  their  kind.  In  their  weariness 
they  forget  that  the  great  masters  of  art  are 
passionately  human.  D'Annunzio  does  not 
wholly  admit  that  he  is  a  human  unit,  and 
his  sentiment  in  this  matter  has  made  him 


54  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

all  the  more  susceptible  to  literary  influences. 
We  find  in  him  deep  impressions  from  his 
French  studies.  He  has  levied  tribute  upon 
Zola,  Bourget,  and  Loti. 

In  1889  d'Annunzio  pubhshed  "  II  Pia- 
cere."  He  lacks,  as  we  have  said,  strong 
human  feelings  ;  he  does  not  know  the  inter- 
est in  life  as  life  ;  he  has  no  zeal  to  live,  and 
from  the  scantiness  and  barrenness  of  his 
external  world  he  turns  to  the  inner  world  of 
self.  M.  de  Vogiie  has  pointed  out  that  his 
heroes,  Sperelli,  Tulho  Hermil,  and  Georgio 
Aurispa,  are  all  studies  of  himself.  D'An- 
nunzio does  not  deny  this.  He  would  argue 
that  it  would  be  nonsense  to  portray  others, 
as  we  know  ourselves  best.  Sperelli,  the 
hero  of  "  II  Piacere,"  is  an  exact  portrait  of 
himself.  He  is  described  as  "  the  perfect 
type  of  a  young  Italian  gentleman  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  true  representative 
of  a  stock  of  gentlemen  and  dainty  artists, 
the  last  descendant  of  an  intellectual  race. 
He  is  saturated  with  art.  His  wonderful 
boyhood  has  been  nourished  upon  divers 
profound  studies.  From  his  father  he  ac- 
quired a  taste  for  artistic  things,  a  passionate 
worship  of  beauty,  a  paradoxical  disdain  for 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  65 

prejudice,  avidity  for  pleasure.  His  educa- 
tion was  a  living  thing ;  it  was  not  got  out 
of  books,  but  in  the  glare  of  human  reality." 
The  result  was  that  "  Sperelli  chose,  in  the 
practice  of  the  arts,  those  instruments  that 
are  difficult,  exact,  perfect,  that  cannot  be 
put  to  base  uses,  —  versification  and  engrav- 
ing ;  and  he  purposed  strictly  to  follow  and 
to  renew  the  forms  of  Italian  tradition,  bind- 
ing himself  with  fresh  ties  to  the  poets  of  the 
new  style  and  to  the  painters  who  came  be- 
fore the  Renaissance.  His  spirit  was  formal 
in  its  very  essence.  He  valued  expression 
more  than  thought.  His  literary  essays  were 
feats  of  dexterity ;  studies  devoted  to  re- 
search, technique,  the  curious.  He  believed 
with  Taine  that  it  would  be  more  difficult 
to  write  six  beautiful  lines  of  poetry  than  to 
win  a  battle.  His  story  of  an  hermaphrodite 
was  imitative,  in  its  structure,  of  the  story 
of  '  Orpheus '  by  Poliziano  ;  it  had  verses  of 
exquisite  delicacy,  melody,  and  force,  espe- 
cially in  the  choruses  sung  by  monsters  of 
double  form,  —  centaurs,  sirens,  sphinxes. 
His  tragedy  ^  La  Simona,'  composed  in  lyri- 
cal metre,  was  of  a  most  curious  savor.  Al- 
though   its  rhymes  obeyed  the  old  Tuscan 


56  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

models,  it  seemed  as  if  it  had  been  begot- 
ten in  the  fancy  of  an  Elizabethan  poet  by  a 
story  from  the  ^  Decameron  ; '  it  held  some- 
thing of  that  music,  rich  and  strange,  which 
is  in  some  of  Shakesjjeare's  minor  plays." 

"  II  Piacere  "  is  a  study  of  the  passion  of 
love.  Sperelli's  love  for  Elena,  and  after- 
wards for  Maria,  is  made  the  subject  of  an 
essay  in  the  guise  of  a  novel  upon  two 
aspects  of  this  passion.  The  first  is  the 
union  of  mind,  almost  non-human,  unac- 
quainted with  life  as  if  new-born,  with  the  fact 
of  sex.  D'Annunzio  takes  this  fact  of  sex 
in  its  simplest  form,  and  portrays  its  effects 
upon  the  mind  in  the  latter's  most  sequestered 
state,  separate  and  apart,  uninfluenced  by 
human  things,  divorced  from  all  humanity. 
He  observes  the  isolated  mind  under  the 
dominion  of  this  fact,  and  describes  it  in  like 
manner  as  he  depicts  the  sea  blown  upon  by 
the  wind.  The  shifting  push  of  emotion,  the 
coming  and  going  of  thought,  the  involu- 
tions and  intricacy  of  momentary  feeling, 
the  whirl  of  fantastic  dreams,  the  swoop  and 
dash  of  memory,  the  grasp  at  the  absolute, 
tlie  rocket-like  whir  of  the  imagination,  — 
all  the  motions  of  the  mind,  like  the  sur- 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  57 

face  of  a  stormy  sea,  toss  and  froth  before 
you. 

Sperelli's  love  for  Maria,  at  least  in  the 
beginning,  is  as  lovely  as  a  girl  could  wish. 
It  may  be  too  much  akin  to  his  passion  for 
art,  it  may  have  in  it  too  much  of  the  ichor 
that  flowed  in  Shelley's  veins.  It  is  delicate, 
ethereal ;  it  is  the  passion  of  a  dream  man 
for  a  dream  maiden.  It  feeds  on  beauty ; 
yet  "like  a  worm  i'  the  bud."  "But  long 
it  could  not  be,  till  that "  his  baser  nature 
"  pull'd  the  poor  wretch  from  its  melodious 
lay  to  muddy  death."  Yet  the  book  is  full 
of  poetry.  We  hardly  remember  chapters 
in  any  novel  that  can  match  in  charm  those 
that  succeed  the  narrative  of  the  duel.  We 
must  free  ourselves  from  habit  by  an  effort, 
and  put  out  of  our  simple  bourgeois  minds 
the  fact  that  Maria  has  made  marriage  vows 
to  another  man ;  and  we  are  able  to  do  this, 
for  the  husband  has  no  claims  upon  her  ex- 
cept from  those  vows,  and  the  poetry  of  the 
episode  ends  long  before  those  vows  are 
broken. 

This  novel,  like  the  others,  is  decorated, 
enameled,  and  lacquered  with  cultivation. 
They  are  all  like  Christmas  trees  laden  with 


J 


58  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

alien  fruit,  —  tinsel,  candles,  confectionery, 
anything  that  will  catch  the  eye.  England, 
France,  Germany,  Russia,  contribute.  Paint- 
ing, sculpture,  architecture,  music,  poetry, 
are  called  upon  to  give  color,  form,  structure, 
sound,  and  dreaminess  to  embellish  the  de- 
scriptions. The  twelfth,  thirteenth,  fourteenth, 
fifteenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  centu- 
ries parade  before  us  in  long  pageant,  — 
"  L'uno  e  I'altro  Guido,"  Gallucci,  Memling, 
Bernini,  Pollajuolo,  Pinturicchio,  Storace, 
Watteau,  Shelley,  Rameau,  Bach,  Gabriel 
Rossetti,  Bizet.  The  charm  of  a  woman  for 
him  is  that  she  resembles  a  Madonna  by 
Ghirlandajo,  an  intaglio  by  Niccolo  Niccoli, 
a  quatrain  by  Cino.  His  ladies  are  tattooed 
with  resemblances,  suggestions,  proportions, 
similarities.  The  descriptions  of  their  attrac- 
tions read  like  an  index  to  "  The  Stones  of 
Venice."  He  does  not  disdain  to  translate 
Shelley's  verse  into  Italian  prose  without 
quotation  marks.  This  passion  for  art  is 
d'Annunzio's  means  of  escaping  the  vulgarity 
of  common  men  ;  it  is  his  refuge,  his  cleft 
in  the  rock,  whither  he  may  betake  himself, 
and  in  which  he  may  enjoy  the  pleasures  of 
intellectual  content  and  scorn.     This  taste 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  59 

emphasizes  his  lack  of  human  kindliness,  and 
it  heightens  the  effect  of  unreahty ;  moreover 
it  limits  and  clips  off  the  interest  of  the  com- 
mon reader.  D'Annunzio  is  like  Mr.  Pater 
in  his  nice  tastes.  He  has  noticed  that  the 
sentences  of  men  who  write  from  a  desire 
to  go  hand  in  hand  with  other  men,  from 
an  eagerness  to  propagate  their  own  beliefs, 
trudge  and  plod,  swinging  their  clauses  and 
parentheses  like  loosely  strapped  panniers ; 
that  they  observe  regulations  that  should  be 
broken,  and  break  rules  that  should  be  kept. 
Therefore  he  girds  himself  like  a  gymnast, 
and  with  dainty  mincing  periods  glides  har- 
monious down  the  page ;  but  his  grace 
sometimes  sinks  into  foppishness.  He  would 
defend  himself  like  Lord  Foppington  in  the 
play. 

"  Tom.  Brother,  you  are  the  prince  of 
coxcombs. 

"  Lord  Foi^i^ington.  I  am  praud  to  be 
at  the  head  of  so  prevailing  a  party." 

But  even  d'Annunzio's  great  skill  cannot 
rescue  him  from  obvious  artificiality.  He 
lives  in  a  hothouse  atmosphere  of  abnormal 
refinement,  at  a  temperature  where  only  crea- 
tures nurtured  to  a  particular  degree  and  a 


v7 


60  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

half  Fahrenheit  can  survive.  Sometimes  one 
is  tempted  to  beHeve  that  d'Annunzio,  con- 
scious of  his  own  inhumanity,  deals  with  the 
passions  in  the  vain  hope  to  lay  hand  upon 
the  human.  He  hovers  like  a  non-human 
creature  about  humanity,  he  is  eager  to 
know  it,  he  longs  to  become  a  man  ;  and 
Setebos,  his  god,  at  his  supplication  turns 
him  into  a  new  form.  The  chanoelino;  thinks 
he  is  become  a  man ;  but  lo  !  he  is  only  an 
intellectual  beast. 

Our  judgment  of  d'Annunzio's  work,  how- 
ever, is  based  upon  other  considerations  than 
that  of  the  appropriate  subordination  of  his 
cultivation  to  his  story.  It  depends  upon  our 
theory  of  human  conduct  and  our  philosophy 
of  hfe,  upon  our  answers  to  these  questions : 
Has  the  long,  long  struggle  to  obtain  new 
interests  —  interests  that  seem  higher  and 
nobler  than  the  old,  interests  the  record  of 
which  constitutes  the  history  of  civilization 
— been  mere  unsuccessful  folly?  Are  the 
chief  interests  in  life  the  primary  instincts  ? 
Are  we  no  richer  than  the  animals,  after  all 
these  toihng  years  of  renunciation  and  self- 
denial  ?  Is  the  heritage  which  we  share  with 
the  beasts  the  best  that  our  fathers  have 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  61 

handed  down  to  us  ?  There  seem  to  be  in 
some  corners  of  our  world  persons  who  an- 
swer these  questions  in  the  affirmative,  say- 
ing, "  Let  us  drop  hypocrisy,  let  us  face  facts 
and  know  ourselves,  let  Enghsh  literature  put 
off  false  traditions  and  deal  with  the  realities 
of  life,"  and  much  more,  all  sparkling-  with 
brave  words.  Persons  like  Mr.  George  Moore, 
who  have  a  profound  respect  for  adjecti^v^s, 
say  these  instincts  are  ^nm«r?/,  they  aTefiti- 
damental,  and  think  that  these  two  words, 
like  "  open  sesame,"  have  admitted  us  into  the 
cave  of  reality.  We  are  unable  to  succumb 
to  the  hallucination.  The  circulation  of  the 
blood  is  eminently  primary  and  fundamen- 
tal, yet  there  was  literature  of  good  repute 
before  it  was  dreamed  of.  For  ourselves, 
we  find  the  interests  of  life  in  the  secondary 
instincts,  in  the  thoughts,  hopes,  sentiments, 
which  man  has  won  through  centuries  of 
toil,  —  here  a  little,  there  a  little.  We  find 
the  earher  instincts  interesting  only  as  they 
furnish  a  struggle  for  qualities  later  born. 
We  are  bored  and  disgusted  by  dragons  of 
the  prime  until  we  hear  the  hoofs  of  St. 
George's  horse  and  see  St.  George's  helmet 
glitter  in  the  sun.     The  dragon  is  no  more 


62  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

interesting  than  a  cockroacli,  except  to  prove 
the  prowess  of  the  hero.  The  bucking  horse 
may  kick  and  curvet ;  we  care  not,  till  the 
cowboy  mount  him.  These  poor  primary 
instincts  are  mere  bulls  for  the  toreador, 
wild  boars  for  the  chase ;  they  are  our  mea- 
sures for  strength,  self-denial,  fortitude,  cour- 
age, temperance,  chastity.  The  instinct  of 
se]f-preservation  is  the  ladder  up  which  the 
soldier,  the  fireman,  the  lighthouse-keeper, 
lightly  trip  to  fame.  What  is  the  primary 
and  fundamental  fear  of  death  ?  With  v/hom 
is  it  the  most  powerful  emotion  ?  "0  my 
son  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  Absalom ! 
would  God  I  had  died  for  thee  !  "  Is  it  with 
mothers?     Ask  them. 

D'Annunzio,  with  his  predilections  for  aris- 
tocracy, thinks  that  these  primary  instincts 
are  of  unequaled  importance  and  interest 
because  of  their  long  descent.  He  forgets 
that  during  the  last  few  thousand  years 
power  has  been  changing  hands ;  that  de- 
mocracy has  come  upon  us ;  and  that  a  vir- 
tue is  judged  by  its  value  to-day,  and  not  by 
that  which  it  had  in  the  misty  past.  Litera- 
ture is  one  long  story  of  the  vain  struggles 
of  the  primary  instincts  against  the  moral 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  63 

nature  of  man.  From  "  (Edipus  Tyrannus  " 
to  "  The  Scarlet  Letter"  the  primary  passions 
are  defeated  and  overcome  by  duty,  rehgion, 
and  the  moral  law.  The  misery  of  broken  law 
outlives  passion  and  tramples  on  its  embers. 
The  love  of  Paolo  and  Francesca  is  swallowed 
up  in  their  sin.  It  is  the  like  in  Faust. 
Earthly  passion  cannot  avail  against  the 
moral  powers.  This  network  of  the  imagi- 
nation binds  a  man  more  strongly  than  iron 
shackles.  The  relations  of  our  souls,  of  our 
higher  selves,  to  these  instincts,  are  what 
absorb  us.  We  are  thrilled  by  the  stories  in 
which  moral  laws,  children  of  instinct,  have 
arisen  and  vanquished  their  fathers,  as  the 
beautiful  young  gods  overcame  the  Titans. 
If  duty  loses  its  savor,  life  no  longer  is 
salted.  The  primary  passions  may  continue 
to  hurl  beasts  at  one  another ;  human  interest 
is  gone.  Were  it  not  for  conscience,  honor, 
loyalty,  the  primary  instincts  would  never  be 
the  subject  of  a  story.  They  would  stay  in 
the  paddocks  of  physiological  textbooks. 

"  What  a  piece  of  work  is  man  "  that  he 
has  been  able  to  cover  a  fact  of  animal  life 
with  poetry  more  beautifully  than  Shake- 
speare dresses  a   tale  from  Bandello !     He 


64  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

has  created  his  honor  as  wonderful  as  his 
love ;  soldiers,  like  so  many  poets,  have 
digged  out  of  cruelty  and  slaughter  this 
jewel  of  life.  Where  is  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  here?  At  Roncesvaux,  when 
Charlemagne's  rear-guard  is  attacked  hy  over- 
whelming numbers,  Roland  denies  Oliver's 
request  that  he  blow  his  horn  for  help.  His 
one  thought  is  that  poets  shall  not  sing  songs 
to  his  dishonor  :  — 

"  Male  can^un  n'en  deit  estre  canWe." 

And  is  the  belief  in  chastity,  which  has 
run  round  the  world  from  east  to  west,  no- 
thing but  a  superstition  born  of  fear  ?  Has 
it  lasted  so  long  only  to  be  proved  at  the 
end  a  coward  and  a  dupe  ?  Is  this  sacrifice 
of  self  mere  instinctive  folly  in  the  individ- 
ual ?  Does  he  gain  nothing  by  it  ?  Are 
the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  praise 
of  Galahad,  the  joys  of  self-denial,  no  more 
than  monkish  ignorance  and  timidity  ? 

We  are  of  the  opinion  that  Vart  de  la 
j^ourriture  is  popular  because  it  is  easily 
acquired.  It  deals  with  the  crude,  the  sim- 
ple, the  undeveloped.  It  has  little  to  do 
with  the  complicated,  intertwined  mass  of  re- 


i 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  65 

lations  that  binds  the  individual  to  all  other 
individuals  whether  he  will  or  not.  It  does 
not  try  to  unravel  the  conglomerate  sum  of 
human  ties.  It  does  not  see  the  myriad  in- 
fluences that  rain  down  upon  a  man  from  all 
that  was  before  him,  from  all  that  is  contem- 
poraneous with  him ;  it  does  not  know  the 
height  above  him,  the  depth  beneath,  the 
mysteries  of  substance  and  of  void.  It  deals 
with  materials  that  offer  no  resistance,  no 
difficulty,  and  cannot  take  the  noble  and 
enduring  forms  of  persisting  things.  It 
ignores  the  great  labors  of  the  human  mind, 
and  the  transforming  effect  of  them  upon  its 
human  habitation.  This  art  cannot  give 
immortality.  One  by  one  the  artists  who 
produce  it  drop  off  the  tree  of  living  litera- 
ture and  are  forgotten.  The  supreme  passion 
of  love  has  been  told  by  Dante :  — 

"  Quel  giorno  pi^  non  vi  leggemmo  avante." 

Does  d'Annunzio  think  that  he  would  have 
bettered  the  passage?  In  the  great  delin- 
eation of  passion,  vulgarity  and  indecency, 
insults  to  manners,  the  monotony  of  vice, 
are  obHterated  j  the  brutality  of  detail  slinks 
off  in  silence. 


66  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

In  1892  d'Aiinunzio  published  "  L'liino- 
cente."  In  this  novel,  as  M.  de  Vogiie  has 
pointed  out,  he  has  directed  his  powers  of 
imitation  towards  the  great  Russian  novelists. 
But  his  spirit  and  talents  are  of  such  differ- 
ent sort  from  those  of  Tourgenieff,  Tolstoi, 
and  Dostoiewsky  that  the  copy  is  of  the  out- 
side and  show.  D'Annunzio's  faculties  have 
not  been  able  to  incorporate  and  to  assimi- 
late anything  of  the  real  Slav ;  they  are  the 
same,  and  express  themselves  in  the  same 
way,  in  "  L'Innocente  "  as  in  "  II  Piacere." 
We  therefore  pass  to  his  most  celebrated 
novel,  "  II  Trioufo  della  Morte,"  published  in 
1894.  A  translation  of  it  —  that  is,  of  as 
much  of  it  as  was  meet  for  French  readers 
—  was  soon  after  published  in  the  "  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes."  This  novel  won  the 
approval  of  M.  de  Vogiie,  and  has  made  Ga- 
briele  d'Annunzio  a  famous  name  through- 
out Europe. 

The  plot,  if  we  may  use  an  old-fashioned 
word  to  express  new  matter,  is  this  :  Georgio 
Aurispa,  a  young  man  of  fortune,  who  leads 
a  life  of  emptiness  in  Rome,  one  day  meets 
Ippolita,  the  wife  of  another  man.  On  this 
important  day  he  has  gone  to  hear  Bach's 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  C7 

Passion  Music  in  a  private  chapel,  and  there 
he  sees  the  beautiful  Ippolita.  Bored  and 
disgusted  by  coarse  pleasures,  he  throws 
himself  with  rapture  into  a  poetical  passion 
for  this  pale-faced,  charming,  slender  Roman 
woman.  The  story  begins  just  before  the 
second  anniversary  of  their  meeting  in  the 
chapel.  The  husband  has  absconded,  and 
Ippolita  lives  with  her  family.  No  sugges- 
tion of  a  possible  marriage  is  made,  although 
Aurispa  frequently  meditates  with  anguish 
on  the  thought  that  she  may  forsake  him. 
He  is  wholly  given  to  examining  his  mind 
and  feelings  ;  he  follows  their  changes,  he 
explains  their  causes,  he  anticipates  their 
mutations.  He  picks  up  each  sentiment  deli- 
cately, like  a  man  playing  jackstraws,  holds 
it  suspended,  contemplates  it  from  this  side 
and  from  that,  balances  it  before  the  faceted 
mirror  of  his  imagination,  and  then  falls 
into  a  melancholy.  He  dandles  his  senti- 
ment for  her,  he  purrs  over  it,  he  sings  to  it 
snatches  of  psychical  old  tunes,  he  ministers 
to  it,  fosters  it,  cherishes  it,  weeps  over  it, 
wonders  if  it  be  <]:rovnno:  or  decreasinsf. 

For  some  reasons  of  duty  Ippolita  is  obliged 
to  be  away  from  Rome  from  time  to  time, 


68  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

once  in  Milan  with  her  sister.  Aurispa  hears 
o£  her,  that  she  is  well,  that  she  is  gay.  "  She 
laughs  !  Then  she  can  laugh,  away  from 
me ;  she  can  be  gay  !  All  her  letters  are  full 
of  sorrow,  of  lamentation,  of  hopeless  long- 
ing." The  English  reader  is  taken  back  to 
that  scene  in  "  The  Rivals "  where  Bob 
Acres  tells  Faulkland  that  he  has  met  Miss 
Melville  in  Devonshire,  and  that  she  is  very 
well. 

"  Acres.  She  has  been  the  belle  and  spmt 
of  the  company  wherever  she  has  been,  —  so 
Uvely  and  entertaining  !  So  full  of  wit  and 
humor ! 

"  Faulkland.  There,  Jack,  there.  Oh, 
by  my  soul !  there  is  an  innate  levity  in 
woman  that  nothing  can  overcome.  What ! 
happy,  and  I  away ! " 

Aurispa  is  peculiarly  sensitive ;  the  bunches 
of  nerve  fibres  at  the  base  of  his  brain,  the 
ganglia  in  his  medulla  oblongata,  are  ex- 
traordinarily alert,  delicate,  and  powerful. 
Every  sensation  runs  through  them  like  a 
galloping  horse  ;  memory  echoes  the  beat- 
ing of  its  hoofs,  and  imagination  speeds  it 
on  into  the  future,  till  it  multipUes,  expands, 
and  swells  into  a  troop.     Aurispa  yearns  to 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  69 

lose  himself  in  happiness,  and  then  droops 
despondent,  for  a  sudden  jog  of  memory  re- 
minds him  that  he  was  in  more  of  an  ecstasy 
when  he  first  met  Ippohta  than  he  is  to-day. 
"  Where  are  those  deKcate  sensations  which 
once  I  had  ?  Where  are  those  exquisite  and 
manifold  pricks  of  melancholy,  those  deep 
and  twisted  pains,  wherein  I  lost  my  soul  as 
in  an  endless  labyrinth  ?  " 

In  the  zeal  of  his  desire  for  fuller,  more 
enduring  pleasure,  he  takes  Ippolita  to  a 
lonely  house  beside  the  sea  that  shall  be 
their  hermitage. 

Aurispa  feels  that  there  are  two  conditions 
necessary  to  perfect  happiness :  one  that  he 
should  be  the  absolute  master  of  Ippolita, 
the  other  that  he  should  have  unlimited  in- 
dependence himself.  "  There  is  upon  earth 
but  one  enduring  intoxication  :  absolute  cer- 
tainty in  the  ownership  of  another,  —  cer- 
tainty fixed  and  unshakable."  Aurispa  pro- 
poses to  attain  this  condition.  He  puts  his 
intelligence  to  slavish  service  in  discovery 
of  a  method  by  which  he  shall  win  that 
larger  life  and  perfect  content  of  which  al- 
most all  men  have  had  visions  and  dreams. 
Long:  ao'o  Buddha  souoht  and  thougfht  to 


70  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

attain  this  condition.  Long  ago  the  Stoics 
devised  plans  to  loose  themselves  from  the 
knots  that  tie  men  to  the  common  life  of  all. 
Long  ago  the  Christians  meditated  a  philo- 
sophy that  should  free  them  from  the  bonds 
of  the  flesh,  that  they  might  live  in  the 
spirit.  Heedless  of  their  experience,  Aurispa 
endeavors  to  find  his  content  in  sensuality  ; 
but  once  in  their  hermitage,  he  soon  perceives 
that  the  new  life  he  sought  is  impossible. 
He  feels  his  love  for  Ippolita  dwindle  and 
grow  thin.  He  must  physic  it  quickly  or  it 
will  die  ;  and  if  love  fail,  nothing  is  left  but 
death.  Sometimes  he  thinks  of  her  as  dead. 
Once  dead,  she  will  become  such  stuff  as 
thoughts  are  made  of,  a  part  of  pure  idealism. 
"  Out  from  a  haltino;  and  lame  existence  she 
will  pass  into  a  complete  and  perfect  life, 
forsaking  forever  her  frail  and  sinful  body. 
To  destroy  in  order  to  possess,  —  there  is  no 
other  way  for  him  who  seeks  the  absolute  in 
love." 

That  was  for  Aurispa  a  continuing  thought, 
but  first  his  fancy  turned  for  help  to  the  re- 
ligious sensuousness  of  his  race.  "  He  had 
the  gift  of  contemplation,  interest  in  symbol 
and  in  allegory,  the  power  of  abstraction,  an 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  71 

extreme  sensitiveness  to  suggestions  by  sight 
or  by  word,  an  organic  tendency  to  haunting 
visions  and  to  hallucinations."  He  lacked 
but  faith.  At  that  time,  superstition  like  a 
•wind  swept  over  the  southern  part  of  Italy ; 
there  were  rumors  of  a  new  Messiah  ;  an 
emotional  fever  infected,  the  whole  country 
round.  A  day's  journey  from  the  hermitage 
lay  the  sanctuary  of  Casalbordino.  Once  the 
Virgin  had  appeared  there  to  a  devout  old 
man,  and  had  granted  his  prayer,  and  to 
commemorate  this  miracle  the  sanctuary  had 
been  built ;  and  now  the  country-folk  swarmed 
to  the  holy  place.  Georgio  and  Ippolita  go 
thither.  All  the  description  of  this  place,  as 
a  note  tells  us,  is  the  result  of  patient  obser- 
vation. About  the  sanctuary  are  gathered 
together  men  and  women  from  far  and  near, 
all  in  a  state  of  high  exaltation.  Troop  upon 
troop  singing,  — 

"  Viva  Maria ! 
Maria  Evviva  !  " 

trudge  over  the  dusty  roads.  These  people 
d'Annunzio  depicts  with  the  quick  eye  and 
the  patient  care  of  an  Agassiz.  Monstrous 
heads,  deformed  chests,  shrunken  legs,  club- 
feet, distorted  hands,  swollen  tumors,  sores 


72  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

of  many  colors,  all  loathsome  diseases  to 
which  flesh  is  heir  and  for  which  d'Annun- 
zio's  medical  dictionary  has  names,  are  here 
set  forth.  "  How  much  morbid  pathology 
has  done  for  the  novehst !  "  he  is  reported  to 
have  said.  Certainly  its  value  to  d'Annun- 
zio  cannot  be  rated  too  high.  Aurispa  and 
Tppolita,  excited  by  the  fanatic  exaltation, 
fight  their  way  into  the  church.  There  a 
miserable  mass  of  huddled  humanity,  shriek- 
ing for  o-race,  struirsrles  toward  the  altar  rail. 
Behind  the  rail,  the  fat,  stolid-faced  priests 
gather  up  the  offerings.  The  air  is  filled 
with  nauseous  smells.  The  church  is  a  hide- 
ous charnel-house,  roofing  in  physical  disease 
and  mental  deformity.  Outside, mountebanks, 
jugglers,  gamesters,  foul  men  and  women, 
intercept  what  part  of  the  offerings  they  can. 
The  memory  of  this  day  made  Aurispa  and 
Ippolita  sick,  —  her  for  human  pity,  him  for 
himself ;  for  he  became  conscious  that  there 
is  no  power  which  can  enthrall  absolute  plea- 
sure. He  had  turned  toward  heaven  to  save 
his  life,  and  he  has  proved  by  experience  his 
belief  in  tlie  emptiness  of  its  grace. 

With  instinctive  repulsion  from  death,  he 
looks  for  escape  to  thought.     Thought  which 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  73 

has  enslaved  him  may  set  him  free.  He 
ponders  upon  the  teaching  of  Nietzsche. 
Away  with  the  creeds  of  weakness,  the  evan- 
gel of  impotence  !  Assert  the  justice  of  in- 
justice, the  righteousness  of  power,  the  joy  of 
creation  and  of  destruction  !  But  Aurispa 
cannot.  Nothing  is  left  him  but  death.  He 
abandons  all  wish  for  perfect  union  with 
IppoHta,  yet  jealousy  will  not  suffer  him  to 
leave  her  alive.  His  love  for  her  has  turned 
into  hate.  In  his  thoughts  it  is  she  that 
hounds  him  to  death  like  a  personal  demon. 
He  grows  supersensitive.  He  cannot  bear 
the  red  color  of  underdone  beef.  He  is 
ready  to  die  of  a  joint,  in  juicy  pain.  He 
gathers  together  in  a  heap  and  gloats  over 
all  that  he  finds  disagreeable  and  repellent 
in  Ippolita.  What  was  she  but  his  creation  ? 
"  Now,  as  always,  she  has  done  nothing  but 
submit  to  the  form  and  impressions  that  I 
have  made.  Her  inner  life  has  always  been 
a  fiction.  When  the  influence  of  my  sug- 
gestion is  interrupted,  she  returns  to  her 
own  nature,  she  becomes  a  woman  again,  the 
instrument  of  base  passion.  Nothing  can 
change  her,  nothing  can  purify  her."  And 
at  last,  by  treachery  and  force,  he  drags  her 


74  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

with  him  over  a  precipice  to  death  be- 
neath. 

Such  is  the  plot,  but  there  is  no  pretense 
that  the  plot  is  interesting  or  important  except 
as  a  scaffold  on  which  to  exhibit  a  philosophy 
of  life.  That  philosophy  is  clearly  the  au- 
thor's philosophy.  D' Annunzio's  novel  shows 
in  clear  view  and  distinct  outline  how  the 
whirligig  of  time  brings  about  its  revenges. 

Bishop  Berkeley  made  famous  the  simple 
theory  of  ideaUsm, —  that  a  man  cannot  go 
outside  of  the  inclosure  of  his  mind ;  that  the 
material  world  is  the  handiwork  of  fancy, 
with  no  reality,  no  length,  nor  breadth,  nor 
fixedness  ;  that  the  pageant  of  life  is  the 
march  of  dreams.  Berkeley  expected  this 
theory  to  destroy  materialism,  skepticism,  and 
infidelity.  It  did,  in  argument.  Many  a 
man  has  taken  courage  in  this  unanswerable 
retort  to  the  materialist.  He  slings  this 
theory,  like  a  smooth  pebble  from  the  brook, 
at  the  Goliaths  who  advance  with  the  pon- 
derous weapons  of  scientific  discovery. 

The  common  idealist  keeps  his  philosophy 
for  his  library,  and  walks  abroad  like  his 
neighbors,  subject  to  the  rules,  beliefs,  and 
habits  of  common  sense.     But  d'Annunzio, 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  75 

who  has  received  and  adopted  a  bastard  scion 
o£  this  idealism,  is,  as  befits  a  man  of  leisure 
and  of  letters,  more  faithful  to  his  philosophy. 
He  has  set  forth  his  version  of  the  theory  in 
this  novel  with  characteristic  clearness.  Au- 
rispa  looks  on  the  world  as  an  instrument 
that  shall  serve  his  pleasure.  He  will  play 
upon  it  what  tunes  he  can  that  he  may  enjoy 
the  emotions  and  passions  of  Hfe.  He  is 
separate  from  his  family  and  has  a  private 
fortune.  His  world  is  small  and  dependent 
upon  him.  In  this  world  Aurispa  has  no 
rival ;  in  it  there  is  no  male  thing  to  bid  him 
struggle  for  supremacy ;  it  is  his  private  pro- 
perty, and  the  right  of  private  property  is 
fixed  as  firm  beyond  the  reach  of  question  as 
the  fact  of  personal  existence.  Gradually  a 
transformation  takes  place ;  this  well-ordered 
and  obedient  world  changes  under  the  domin- 
ion of  Aurispa's  thought.  Little  by  little 
object  and  subject  lose  their  identity ;  Kke 
the  thieves  of  the  Seventh  Bolge  in  the  In- 
ferno, they  combine,  unite,  form  but  one 
whole.  In  this  chano;e  the  material  world  is 
swallowed  up,  and  out  from  the  transforma- 
tion crawls  the  ideal  world  of  Aurispa's 
thought :  — 


76  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

"  Ogni  primaio  aspetto  ivi  era  casso  ; 
Due  e  nessun  1'  imagine  perversa 
Parea,  e  tal  sen  gia  con  lento  passo." 

This  ideal  world  is  Aurispa's.  It  varies  with 
his  volition,  for  it  is  the  aggregate  of  his 
thoughts,  and  they  are  the  emanations  of  his 
will.  In  this  dominion  he  stands  like  a  de- 
generate Caesar,  drunk  with  power,  frenzied 
with  his  own  potent  impotence.  Everything 
is  under  his  control,  and  yet  there  is  a  some- 
thing imperceptible,  like  an  invisible  wall, 
that  bars  his  way  to  perfect  pleasure.  He 
wanders  all  along  it,  touching,  feeling,  grop- 
ing, all  in  vain.  Think  subtly  as  he  will,  he 
finds  no  breach.  Yet  his  deepest,  his  only 
desire  is  to  pass  beyond.  Perhaps  life  is  this 
barrier.  He  will  break  it  down,  and  find  his 
absolute  pleasure  in  death.  And  in  exasper- 
ation of  despair  before  this  invisible  obstacle 
he  has  recourse  to  action.  In  the  presence 
of  action  his  ideal  world  wrestles  once  more 
with  reality,  and  amid  the  struggles  Aurispa 
finds  that  the  only  remedy  for  his  impotent 
individuality  is  to  die.  Both  idealism  and 
fact  push  him  towards  death. 

If  we  choose  to  regard  Aurispa  as  living 
in  a  real  world,  as  a  man  responsible  for  his 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  77 

acts,  as  a  member  of  human  society,  we  have 
little  to  say  concerning  him.  He  is  a  timid 
prig,  a  voluptuous  murderer,  an  intellectual 
fop,  smeared  with  self-love,  vulgar  to  the  ut- 
most refinement  of  vulgarity,  cruel,  morbid, 
a  flatterer,  and  a  liar. 

For  poor  Ippolita  we  have  compassion. 
Had  she  lived  out  of  Aurispa's  world,  with 
her  alluring  Italian  nature  she  might  have 
been  charming.  There  is  a  rare  feminine 
attractiveness  about  her :  had  she  been  sub- 
ject to  sweet  influences,  had  she  been  born 
to  Tourgenieff,  she  would  have  been  one  of 
the  dehghtful  women  of  fiction.  All  that 
she  does  has  an  attendant  possibility  of  grace, 
eager  to  become  mcorporate  in  action.  Del- 
icacy, sensitiveness,  affection,  fitness  for  the 
gravity  and  the  gayety  of  life,  hover  like 
ministering  spirits  just  beyond  the  covers  of 
the  book  ;  they  w^ould  come  down  to  her,  but 
they  cannot.  This  possibility  died  before  its 
birth.  Ippolita's  unborn  soul,  like  the  ro- 
mantic episode  in  "II  Piacere,"  makes  us  feel 
that  d'Annunzio  may  hereafter  break  loose 
from  his  theories,  free  himself  from  his  cigar- 
ette-smoking philosophy,  smash  the  looking- 
glass  in  front  of  which  he  sits  copying  his 


78  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

own  likeness,  and  start  anew,  able  to  under- 
stand the  pleasures  of  life  and  prepared  to 
share  in  the  joys  of  the  struggle.  Surely  M. 
de  Voofiie  is  lookino;'  at  these  indications  of 
creative  ability  and  poetic  thought,  and  not 
at  accomplishment,  when  he  hails  d' Annunzio 
as  the  leader  of  another  Italian  Renaissance. 
It  is  hope  that  calls  forth  M.  de  Vogiie's 
praise.  A  national  literature  has  never  yet 
been  built  upon  imitation,  sensuaHty,  and 
artistic  frippery. 

After  finishing  the  last  page  of  "  The  Tri- 
umph of  Death,"  quick  as  a  flash  we  pass 
through  many  phases  of  emotion.  In  the  in- 
stant of  time  before  the  book  leaves  our  hand, 
our  teeth  set,  our  muscles  contract,  we  desire 
to  hit  out  from  the  shoulder.  Our  memory 
teems  with  long-forgotten  physical  acts,  up- 
per-cuts, left-handers,  swingers,  knock-outs. 
By  some  mysterious  process,  words  that  our 
waking  mind  could  not  recall  surge  up  in 
capital  letters  ;  all  the  vocabulary  of  Shake- 
spearean insult  rings  in  our  ears,  —  base, 
proud,  shallow,  beggarly,  silk-stocking  knave, 
a  glass  -  gazing  finical  rogue,  a  coward,  a 
pander,  a  culHonly  barber-monger,  a  smooth- 
tongued bolting-hutch  of  beastliness.     Our 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  79 

thoughts  bound  like  wild  things  from  prize- 
fights to  inquisitors,  from  them  to  Iroquois, 
to  devils.  Then  succeeds  the  feeling  as  of 
stepping  on  a  snake,  a  sentiment  as  of  a 
struggle  between  species  of  animals,  of  in- 
stinctive combat  for  supremacy  ;  no  sense  of 
ultimate  ends  or  motives,  but  the  sudden 
knowledge  that  our  gorge  is  rising  and  that 
we  will  not  permit  certain  things.  We  raise 
no  question  of  reason ;  we  put  aside  intelli- 
gence, and  say.  The  time  is  come  for  hfe 
to  choose  between  you  and  us.  The  book, 
after  leaving  our  hand,  strikes  the  opposite 
wall  and  flutters  to  the  floor.  We  grow 
calmer ;  we  draw  up  an  indictment ;  we  will 
try  Aurispa-d'Annunzio  before  a  jury  of 
English-speaking  men.  Call  the  tale.  Colo- 
nel Newcome  !  Adam  Bede  1  Baillie  Jarvie  ! 
Tom  Brown  !  Sam  Weller !  But  nonsense  ! 
these  men  are  not  eligible.  Aurispa-d'An- 
nunzio must  be  tried  by  a  jury  of  his  peers. 
By  this  time  we  have  recovered  our  compo- 
sure, and  rejoice  in  the  common  things  of 
life,  —  shaving-brushes,  buttoned  boots,  cra- 
vats, counting-stools,  vouchers,  ledgers,  news- 
papers. All  the  multitude  of  little  things, 
forgiving  our  old  discourtesy,  heap  coals  of 


80  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

fire  upon  our  heads  with  their  glad  proofs 
of  reality.  For  a  moment  we  can  draw  aside 
"  the  veil  of  familiarity  "  from  common  life 
and  behold  the  poetry  there ;  we  bless  our 
simple  affections  and  our  daily  bread.  The 
dear  kind  solid  earth  stands  faithful  and 
familiar  under  our  feet.  How  beautiful  it 
is! 

"  Die  uubegreiflich  hobeu  Werke 
Sind  herrlich  wie  am  ersten  Tag." 

D'Annunzio's  latest  novel,  "  Le  Vergini 
delle  Rocce,"  was  pubhshed  in  1896.  In  it 
he  appears  as  a  symbolist,  and  by  far  the 
most  accomplished  of  the  school.  The  story 
is  not  of  real  peoj^le,  but  concerns  the  in- 
habitants of  some  spiritual  world,  as  if  cer- 
tain instantaneous  ideas  of  men,  divorced 
from  the  ideas  of  the  instant  before  and  of 
the  instant  after,  and  therefore  of  a  weird, 
unnatural  look,  had  been  caught  there  and 
kept  to  inhabit  it,  and  should  thenceforward 
live  after  their  own  spiritual  order,  with  no 
further  relations  to  humanity.  These  fig- 
ures bear  no  doubtful  resemblance  to  the 
men  and  women  in  ^he  pictures  of  Dante 
Rossetti  and  of  Burne-Jones.  One  might 
fancy  that  a   solitary  maid  gazing   into   a 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  81 

beryl  stone  would  see  three  such  strangely 
beautiful  virgins,  Massimilla,  Anatolia,  Vio- 
lante,  move  their  weary  young  limbs  daintily 
in  the  crystal  sphere. 

The  landscape  is  the  background  of  an 
English  preraphaelite  painter.  Here  d'An- 
nunzio's  style  is  in  its  delicate  perfection. 
It  carries  these  three  strange  and  beautiful 
ladies  along,  as  the  river  that  runs  down  to 
many  -  towered  Camelot  bore  onward  the 
shallop  of  the  Lady  of  Shalott.  It  is  trans- 
lucent ;  everything  mirrors  in  it  with  a  deli- 
cate sensitiveness,  as  if  it  were  the  mind  of 
some  fairy  asleep,  in  which  nothing  except 
what  is  lovely  and  harmonious  could  reflect, 
and  as  if  the  slightest  discord,  the  least  petty 
failure  of  grace,  would  wake  the  sleeper  and 
end  the  images  forever.  D'Annunzio's  sen- 
tences have  the  quality  of  an  incantation. 
This  is  the  work  of  a  master  apprentice. 
But  there  the  mastery  ends.  A  story  so  far 
removed  from  life,  a  fairy  story,  must  have 
order  and  law  of  its  own,  must  be  true  to  it- 
self ;  or  else  it  must  move  in  some  fairy  plane 
parallel  to  human  life,  and  never  pretermit 
its  correspondence  with  humanity. 

Claudio,  the  teller  of  the  story,  is  a  scion 


82  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

of  a  noble  Italian  family,  of  which  one  Ales- 
sanclro  had  been  the  most  illustrious  member. 
When  the  tale  begfins  Claudio  is  riding:  over 
the  Campagna,  thinking  aloud,  as  it  were. 
His  mind  is  full  of  speculation.  What  is 
become  of  Rome  ?  —  Rome,  the  home  of  the 
dominant  Latin  race,  born  to  rule  and  to 
bend  other  nations  to  its  desires.  What  is 
the  Pope  ?  What  is  the  King  ?  Who,  who 
will  combine  in  himself  the  triune  powers 
of  passion,  intellect,  and  poetry,  and  lift  the 
Italian  people  back  to  the  saddle  of  the 
world  ?  By  severe  self-discipline  Claudio  has 
conceived  his  own  life  as  a  whole,  as  mate- 
rial for  art,  and  has  succeeded  to  so  high  a 
degree  that  now  he  holds  all  his  power  of 
passion,  intellect,  and  poetry  like  a  drawn 
sword.  He  will  embody  in  act  the  concept 
of  his  life.  He  reflects  how .  the  Nazarene 
failed,  for  he  feared  the  world  and  know- 
ledge, and  turned  from  them  to  ignorance 
and  the  desert ;  how  Bonaparte  failed,  for  he 
had  not  the  conception  of  fashioning  his  Hfe 
as  a  great  work  of  art ;  and  Claudio's  mind 
turns  to  his  own  ancestor,  the  untimely  killed 
Alessandro,  and  ponders  that  he  did  not  live 
and  die  in  vain,  but  that  his  spirit  still  exists, 


4 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  83 

ready  to  burst  forth  in  some  child  of  his 
race.  Claudio's  duty  is  to  marry  a  woman 
who  shall  bear  a  son,  such  that  his  passion, 
intellect,  and  poetry  shall  make  him  the  re- 
deemer of  the  world,  and  restore  Rome  mis- 
tress of  nations.  As  he  rides  he  calls  ujDon 
the  poets  to  defend  the  beautiful  from  the 
attacks  of  the  gross  multitude,  and  upon  the 
patricians  to  assume  their  rightful  place  as 
masters  of  the  people,  to  pick  up  the  fallen 
whip  and  frighten  back  into  its  sty  the  Great 
Beast  that  grunts  in  parliament  and  press. 

Filled  with  these  images  of  his  desire, 
Claudio  goes  back  to  his  ancestral  domain 
in  southern  Italy.  An  aged  lord,  at  one 
time  friend  to  the  last  Bourbons  of  Naples, 
dwells  in  a  neighboring  castle  with  his  three 
viro'in  daughters.  About  this  castle  we  find 
all  the  literary  devices  of  Maeterlinck.  "  The 
splendor  falls  on  castle  walls,"  but  it  is  a 
strange  light,  as  of  a  moon  that  has  over- 
powered the  sun  at  noon.  The  genius  of 
the  castle  is  the  insane  mother,  who  wanders 
at  will  through  its  chambers,  down  the  paths 
of  its  gardens,  rustling  in  her  ancient  dress, 
with  two  gray  attendants  at  her  heels.  She 
is  hardly  seen,  but,  like  a  prmciple  of  evil, 


84  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

throws  a  spell  over  all  the  place.  In  front 
of  the  palace  the  fountain  splashes  its  waters 
in  continuous  jets  into  its  basin  with  mur- 
murous sounds  of  mysterious  horror.  Two 
sons  hover  about,  gazing  in  timid  fascina- 
tion upon  their  mother,  wondering  when  the 
inheritance  of  madness  shall  fall  upon  them. 
One  is  already  doomed ;  the  other,  with  fear- 
ful consciousness,  is  on  the  verge  of  doom. 
The  three  daughters  have  each  her  separate 
virtue.  Massimilla  is  a  likeness  of  St.  Clare, 
the  companion  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  She 
is  the  spirit  of  the  love  that  waits  and  re- 
ceives. Her  heart  is  a  fruitful  garden  with 
an  infinite  capability  for  faith.  AnatoHa  is 
the  spirit  of  the  love  that  gives.  She  has 
courage,  strength,  and  vitality  enough  to 
comfort  and  support  a  host  of  the  weak  and 
timid.  Violante  is  the  tragical  spirit  of  the 
power  of  beauty.  The  light  of  triumph  and 
the  beauty  of  tragedy  hang  over  her  like  a 
veil.  From  among  these  three  beautiful  vir- 
gins Claudio  must  choose  one  to  be  the 
mother  of  him  who,  composed  of  passion, 
power,  and  poetry,  shall  redeem  the  dis- 
jointed world,  straighten  the  crooked  course 
of  nature,  and  set  the  crown  of  the  world 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  85 

acain  on  the  forehead  of  Rome.  He  chooses 
Anatolia,  and  here  the  book  enters  the  realm 
of  reality.  Anatolia  is  a  real  woman ;  she 
feels  the  duties  of  womanhood,  her  bonds  to 
her  father,  her  mother,  and  her  brothers, 
and  in  a  natural  and  womanly  way  she  re- 
fuses to  be  Claudio's  wife.  There  the  book 
ends,  with  the  promise  of  two  more  volumes. 
Anatoha  is  a  hving  being  in  this  strange 
world  of  fantasy,  and  though  she  is  not  true 
to  the  spirit  of  the  story,  she  is  one  of  the 
indications  of  d'Annunzio's  power. 

The  faults  of  the  book  are  great.  But 
all  books  are  not  meant  for  all  persons.  Who 
shall  judge  the  merits  of  such  a  book  ?  The 
men  who  live  in  a  world  of  action,  or  the  men 
who  live  in  a  world  half  made  of  dreams  ? 
Shakespeare  has  written  "  The  Tempest "  for 
both  divisions,  but  other  men  must  be  con- 
tent to  choose  one  or  the  other.  This  book 
is  for  the  latter  class.  Yet  even  for  them  it 
has  great  faults.  The  mechanical  contriv- 
ances, the  solitary  castle,  the  insane  mother, 
the  three  virgins,  the  chorus  of  the  fountain, 
the  iteration  of  thought,  the  repetition  of 
phrase,  are  all  familiar  to  readers  of  Maeter- 
linck.    The  element  of  the  heroic,  the  advo- 


86  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

cacy  of  a  patrician  order,  the  love  of  Rome, 
the  adulation  of  intellectual  power,  are  dis- 
cordant with  the  mysterious  nature  of  the 
book.  Claudio,  full  of  monster  thoughts,  — 
of  a  timid  Christ,  of  an  ill-rounded  Napo- 
leon, of  the  world's  dominion  restored  to 
Rome,  —  sits  down  to  flirt  with  Massimilla 
in  the  attitude  of  a  young  Baudelaire.  The 
reader  feels  that  he  has  been  watching  a 
preraphaelite  opera  bouffe. 

We  cannot  be  without  some  curiosity  as 
to  what  is  d'Annunzio's  attitude  towards  his 
own  novels.  In  Bourget's  "  Le  Disciple  " 
we  had  a  hero  in  very  much  the  same  tangle 
of  psychological  theory  as  is  Aurispa.  The 
disciple  wandered  far  in  his  search  for  ex- 
perience, for  new  fields  and  novel  combina- 
tions of  sentiment.  His  world  lost  all  moral- 
ity. There  was  neither  right  nor  wrong  in 
it,  but  it  still  remained  a  real  world.  In  the 
preface,  the  only  chapter  in  which,  under 
the  present  conventionalities  of  novel-writ- 
ing, the  writer  is  allowed  to  speak  in  his  own 
voice,  Bourget,  with  Puritan  earnestness, 
warns  the  young  men  of  France  to  beware  of 
the  dangers  which  he  describes,  to  look  for- 
ward to  the  terrible  consequences  in  a  world 


I 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  87 

in  which  there  is  neither  right  nor  wrong, 
to  turn  back  while  yet  they  may.  It  seems 
reasonable  to  look  to  the  prefaces  to  learn 
what  d'Annunzio's  attitude  towards  his  own 
books  is,  and  we  find  no  consciousness  in 
them  of  right  and  wrong,  of  good  and  evil, 
such  as  troubled  Bourget.  All  d'Annunzio's 
work  is  built  upon  a  separation  between  hu- 
manity —  beings  knowing  good  and  evil  — 
and  art. 

Nevertheless,  d'Annunzio  has  a  creed.  He 
believes  in  the  individual,  that  he  shall  take 
and  keep  what  he  can ;  that  this  is  no  world 
in  which  to  play  at  altruism  and  to  encum- 
ber ourselves  with  hypocrisy.  He  believes 
that  power  and  craft  have  rights  better  than 
those  of  weakness  and  simplicity ;  that  a 
chosen  race  is  entitled  to  all  the  advantages 
accruing  from  that  choice ;  that  a  patrician 
order  is  no  more  bound  to  consider  the  lower 
classes  than  m«n  are  bound  to  respect  the 
rights  of  beasts.  He  proclaims  this  belief, 
and  preaches  to  what  he  regards  as  the  patri- 
cian order  his  mode  of  obtaining  from  life 
all  that  it  has  to  give.  Art  is  his  watch- 
word, the  art  of  life  is  his  text.  Know  the 
beautiful ;  enjoy  all  that  is  new  and  strange  ; 


88  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

be  not  afraid  of  the  booties  of  moral  law  and 
of  human  tradition,  —  they  are  idols  wrought 
by  ignorant  plebeians. 

He  finds  that  the  main  hindrance  to  the 
adoption  of  this  creed  is  an  uneasy  sense  of 
relativity  of  life.  Even  the  patrician  order 
entertains  a  suspicion  that  life  —  the  noblest 
material  for  art  to  work  in  —  is  not  of  the 
absolute  grain  and  texture  that  d'Annunzio's 
theory  presupposes.  The  individual  life, 
wrought  with  greatest  care,  and  fashioned 
into  a  shape  of  beauty  after  d'Annunzio's 
model,  may  seem  to  lose  all  its  lovehness 
when  it  is  complete  and  the  artist  hes  on  his 
deathbed.  And  therefore,  in  order  to  obtain 
disciples,  d'Annunzio  perceives  that  he  must 
persuade  his  patricians  to  accept  the  phe- 
nomena of  life,  which  the  senses  present,  as 
final  and  absolute.  The  main  support  for 
the  theory  of  the  relativity  of  life  is  religion. 
In  long  procession  religious  creeds  troop 
down  through  history,  and  on  every  banner 
is  inscribed  the  belief  in  an  Absolute  behind 
the  seeming.  D'Annunzio  must  get  rid  of 
all  these  foolish  beliefs.  He  would  argue, 
"  They  are  a  train  of  superstition,  ignorance, 
and  fear.     They  have  failed  and  they  will 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  89 

fail  because  they  dare  not  face  truth.  What 
is  the  rehgious  conception  of  the  Divine 
love  for  man,  and  of  the  love  of  man  for 
God  ?  God's  love  is  a  superstitious  infer- 
ence drawn  from  the  love  of  man  for  God ; 
and  man's  love  of  God  in  its  turn  is  but  a 
blind  deduction  from  man's  love  for  woman. 
In  the  light  of  science  man's  love  for  woman 
shrinks  to  an  instinct.  This  Divine  love 
that  looks  so  fair,  that  has  made  heroes  and 
sustained  mystics,  is  mere  sentimental  milli- 
nery spun  out  of  a  fact  of  animal  life.  This 
fact  is  the  root  of  the  doctrine  of  relativity. 
From  it  has  sprung  religion,  idealism,  mysti- 
cism. Examine  this  fact  scientifically  ;  see 
what  it  is,  and  how  far,  how  very  far,  it  is 
from  justifying  the  inferences  drawn  from 
love,  and  without  doubt  the  whole  intellect- 
ual order  of  patricians  must  accept  my  be- 
liefs." Another  man  might  say  :  "  Suppose 
it  be  so  ;  suppose  this  animal  fact  be  the 
root  from  which  springs  the  blossoming  tree 
of  Divine  love :  this  inherent  power  of 
growth  dumfounds  me  more,  makes  me 
more  uncertain  of  my  apparent  perceptions, 
than  all  the  priestly  explanations." 

In  d'Annunzio's  idolatry  of  force  there  is 


90  D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST 

a  queer  lack  of  tlie  masculine  ;  his  voice  is 
shrill  and  sounds  soprano.  In  his  morbid 
supersensitiveness,  in  his  odd  fantasy,  there 
is  a  feminine  strain  ;  and  yet  not  wholly  fem- 
inine. In  his  incongruous  delineation  of  char- 
acter there  is  a  mingling  of  hopes  and  fears, 
of  thoughts  and  feelings,  that  are  found 
separate  and  distinct  in  man  and  woman. 
In  all  his  novels  there  is  an  unnatural  atmos- 
phere, which  is  different  from  that  in  the 
books  of  the  mere  decadents.  There  is  the 
presence  of  an  intellectual  and  emotional 
condition  that  is  neither  mascuUne  nor  fem- 
inine, and  yet  partaking  of  both.  There  is 
an  appeal  to  some  elements  in  our  nature 
of  which  theretofore  we  were  unaware.  As 
sometimes  on  a  summer's  day,  swimming  on 
the  buoyant  waters  of  the  ocean,  we  fancy 
that  once  we  were  native  there,  so  in  reading 
this  book  we  have  a  vague  surmise  beneath 
our  consciousness  that  once  there  was  a  time 
when  the  sexes  had  not  been  differentiated, 
and  that  we  are  in  ourselves  partakers  of 
the  spiritual  characteristics  of  each  ;  and  yet 
the  feeling  is  wholly  disagreeable.  We  feel 
as  if  we  had  been  in  the  secret  museum 
at  Naples,  and  we  are  almost  ready  to  bathe 


D'ANNUNZIO,  NOVELIST  91 

in    hot   lava   that  we   shall   no  longer  feel 
unclean. 

We  do  not  believe  that  a  novel  of  the  first 
rank  can  be  made  out  of  the  materials  at 
d'Annunzio's  command.  Instead  of  humor 
he  has  scorn  and  sneer;  in  place  of  con- 
science he  gives  us  swollen  egotism ;  for  the 
deep  affections  he  proffers  lust.  We  are 
human,  we  want  human  beings,  and  he  sets 
up  fantastic  puppets;  we  ask  for  a  man,  and 
under  divers  aliases  he  puts  forth  himself. 
We  grow  weary  of  caparisoned  paragraph 
and  bedizened  sentence,  of  clever  imitation 
and  brilliant  cultivation  ;  we  demand  some- 
thing to  satisfy  our  needs  of  religion,  edu- 
cation, feeHng ;  we  want  bread,  and  he  gives 
us  a  gilded  stone.  There  are  great  regions 
of  reality  and  romance  still  to  be  discovered 
by  bold  adventurers,  but  Gabriele  d'Annun- 
zio  will  not  find  them  unless  he  be  born 
again. 


MONTAIGNE 


MONTAIGNE 


There  have  been  greater  men  in  litera- 
ture than  Montaigne,  but  none  have  been 
more  successful.  His  reputation  is  immense ; 
he  is  in  men's  mouths  next  to  Dante  and 
Cervantes.  We  look  at  that  intelligent,  con- 
templative, unimpassioned  face,  with  its  tired 
eyes,  and  wonder  that  he  should  have  achieved 
fame  as  immortal  as  that  of  the  fierce  Italian 
or  the  noble  Spaniard.  In  the  affairs  of  fame 
luck  plays  its  part.  Sometimes  a  man's  gen- 
ius keeps  step  with  his  country  and  his  time ; 
he  gains  power  from  sympathy,  his  muscles 
harden,  his  head  clears,  as  he  runs  a  winning 
race.  Another  man  will  fail  in  the  enervat- 
ing atmosphere  of  recognition  and  applause ; 
he  needs  obstacles,  the  whip  and  spur  of  dif- 
ficulty. Montaigne  was  born  under  a  lucky 
star.  Had  fate  shown  him  all  the  kino'doms 
of  the  world  and  all  time,  and  given  him  the 
choice  when  and  where  to  live,  he  could  not 
have  chosen  better. 


96  MONTAIGNE 

Montaigne's  genius  is  French  in  every 
fibre ;  he  embodies  better  than  any  one 
other  man  the  French  character.  In  this 
world  nationality  counts  for  much,  both  at 
home  and  abroad.  Frenchmen  enjoy  their 
own  ;  they  relish  French  nature,  its  niceties, 
its  strong  personality.  Sluggish  in  turning 
to  foreign  things,  they  are  not  prone  to  ac- 
quire tastes ;  but  whatever  is  native  to  them 
they  cultivate,  study,  and  appreciate  with 
rare  subtlety.  They  enjoy  Montaigne  as 
men  enjoy  a  work  of  art,  with  the  satisfac- 
tion of  comprehension. 

In  truth,  all  men  like  a  strong  national 
^avor  in  a  book.  Montaigne  typifies  what 
France  has  been  to  the  world :  he  exhibits 
the  characteristic  marks  of  French  intelli- 
gence ;  he  represents  the  French  mind.  Of 
course  such  representation  is  false  in  many 
measures.  A  nation  is  too  big  to  have  her 
character  completely  shown  forth  by  one  man. 
Look  at  the  cathedrals  of  the  Ile-de-France ; 
read  the  lives  of  Joan  of  Arc  and  St.  Francis 
of  Sales,  of  the  Jesuits  in  Canada ;  remember 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,  and  that  it  was, 
as  M.  de  Vogiie  says,  the  mad  caprice  of 
France  which  raised  Napoleon  to  his  high 


MONTAIGNE  97 

estate ;  and  we  realize  how  fanciful  it  is  to 
make  one  man  typify  a  nation.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  common  talk  that  France  takes 
ideas  and  makes  them  clear ;  that  she  un- 
ravels the  tangled  threads  of  thought,  elimi- 
,nating  disorder ;  that  she  is  romantic  ;  that 
she  is  not  religious  ;  that  she  shrugs  her 
shoulders  at  the  vague  passions  of  the  soul ; 
that  she  is  immensely  intelhgent;  that  she 
is  fond  of  pleasure ;  and  that  her  favorite 
diversion  is  to  sit  heside  the  great  boulevard 
of  human  existence  and  make  comments, 
fresh,  frank,  witty,  wise. 

In  these  respects  Montaigne  is  typical. 
He  does  not  create  new  ideas,  he  is  no  ex- 
plorer ;  he  takes  the  notions  of  other  men, 
holds  them  up  to  the  light,  turns  them  round 
and  about,  gazing  at  them.  He  is  intellectu- 
ally honest ;  he  dishkes  pretense.  At  bottom, 
too,  he  is  romantic  :  witness  his  reverence  for 
Socrates,  his  admiration  of  the  Stoics,  his 
desu-e  for  the  citizenship  of  Rome.  He  has 
the  French  cast  of  mind  that  regards  men, 
primarily,  not  as  individuals,  but  rather  as 
members  of  society.  He  has  the  sense  of 
behavior.  "  All  strangeness  and  peculiarity 
in  our  manners  and  ways  of  life  are  to  be 


.V--. 


98  MONTAIGNE 

avoided  as  enemies  to  society.  .  .  .  Know- 
ledge of  how  to  behave  in  company  is  a  very 
useful  knowledge.  Like  grace  and  beauty, 
it  conciliates  at  the  very  beginning  of  ac- 
quaintance, and  in  consequence  opens  the 
door  for  us  to  learn  by  the  example  of  others, 
and  to  set  an  example  ourselves,  if  we  have 
anything  worth  teaching." 

Montaigne  is  not  reHgious,  —  certainly  not 
after  the  fashion  of  a  Bishop  Brooks  or  a 
Father  Hecker.  He  is  a  pagan  rather  than 
a  Christian.  He  likes  gayety,  wit,  agreeable 
society ;  he  is  fond  of  conversation.  He 
boards  his  subject  like  a  sociable  creature, 
he  is  a  born  talker,  he  talks  away  obscurity. 
He  follows  his  subject  as  a  young  dog  fol- 
lows a  carriage,  bounding  off  the  road  a 
hundred  times  to  investij^ate  the  neiofhbor- 
hood.  His  loose-Hmbed  mind  is  easy,  light, 
yet  serious.  He  pares  away  the  rind  of 
things,  smelling  the  fruit  joyously,  not  as  if 
employed  in  a  business  of  funereal  looks, 
but  in  something:  human  and  cheerful.  He 
has  good  taste. 

Montaigne  had  good  luck  not  only  in  his 
country,  but  also  in  his  generation.  He 
lived  at  the  time  when  the  main  current  of 


MONTAIGNE  99 

Latin  civilization  shifted  from  Italy  to  France. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
Italy  was  the  intellectual  head  of  the  Latin 
world,  her  thought  and  art  were  the  mould- 
ing forces  of  modern  civilization.  When  the 
seventeenth  century  opened,  France  had  as- 
sumed the  primacy.  The  great  culmination 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance  came  close  to  the 
time  of  Montaigne's  birth ;  when  he  died, 
Italy  was  sinking  into  dependence  in  thought 
and  servihty  in  art,  whereas  France  was 
emerging  from  her  civil  wars,  under  the  rule 
of  one  of  the  greatest  of  Frenchmen,  ready 
to  become  the  dominant  power,  politically 
and  intellectually,  in  Europe.  Coming  at 
this  time,  Montaigne  was  a  pioneer.  His 
was  one  of  the  formative  minds  which  gave 
to  French  intelligence  that  temper  which  has 
enabled  it  to  do  so  much  for  the  world  in  the 
last  three  hundred  years.  He  showed  it  a 
great  model  of  dexterity,  lightness,  and  ease. 
Not  only  did  Montaigne  help  fashion  the 
French  intelligence  in  that  important  period, 
but  he  did  much  to  give  that  intelligence  a 
tool  by  which  it  could  put  its  capacities  to 
use.  It  is  from  Montaigne  that  French 
prose   gets  a  buoyant   lightness.      He   has 


100  MONTAIGNE 

been  called  one  o£  the  great  French  poets. 
Had  it  not  been  for  Montaigne  and  his  con- 
temporaries, the  depressing  influence  of  the 
seventeenth  century  would  have  hardened 
the  language,  taking  out  its  grace,  and  mak- 
ing it  a  clever  mechanical  contrivance.  His 
influence  has  been  immense.  It  is  said  that 
an  hundred  years  after  his  death  his  Essays 
were  to  be  found  on  the  bookshelves  of 
every  gentleman  in  France.  French  critics 
trace  his  influence  on  Pascal,  La  Bruyere, 
Rousseau,  Montesquieu,  Sainte-Beuve,  and 
Renan.  To-day  no  one  can  read  M.  Anatole 
France  or  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  without  saying 
to  himself,  "  This  is  fruit  from  the  same  rich 
stock." 

There  are  reasons  besides  these  which 
have  given  Montaigne  his  great  position  in 
the  world's  Hterature.  The  first  is  his  habit 
of  mind.  He  is  a  considerer,  an  examiner,  a 
skeptic.  He  prowls  about  the  behefs,  the 
opinions  and  usages,  of  men,  and,  taking  up 
a  thought,  lifts  from  it,  one  by  one,  the 
envelopes  of  custom,  of  prejudice,  of  time, 
of  place.  He  holds  up  the  opinion  of  one 
school,  praising  and  admiring  it ;  and  then 
the  contradictory  opinion  of  another  school, 


MONTAIGNE  101 

praising  and  admiring-  that.  In  his  scales  he 
balances  notion  against  notion,  man  against 
man,  usage  against  usage.  It  was  his  great 
usefulness  that,  in  a  time  when  notable  men 
put  so  much  trust  in  matters  of  faith  that 
they  constructed  theologies  of  adamant  and 
burnt  dissenters,  he  calmly  announced  the 
relativity  of  knowledge.  He  was  no  student 
mustily  thinking  in  a  dead  language,  but  a 
gentleman  in  waiting  to  the  king,  knight  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Michael,  writing  in  fresh, 
poetic  French,  with  all  the  captivation  of 
charm,  teaching  the  fundamental  principles 
of  doubt  and  uncertainty ;  for  if  there  be 
doubt  there  will  be  tolerance,  if  there  be  un- 
certainty there  will  be  liberality.  He  laid 
the  axe  to  the  root  of  religious  bigotry  and 
civil  intolerance.  "  Things  apart  by  them- 
selves have,  it  may  be,  their  weight,  their 
dimensions,  their  condition  ;  but  within  us, 
the  mind  cuts  and  fashions  them  according 
to  its  own  comprehension.  .  .  .  Health,  con- 
science, authority,  knowledge,  riches,  beauty, 
and  their  contraries,  strip  off  their  outward 
semblances  at  the  threshold  of  the  mind,  and 
receive  at  its  hands  new  garments,  of  such 
dyes  as  it  please." 


102  MONTAIGNE 

The  emphasis  of  self  is  at  the  base  of  mod- 
ern Hf  e.  The  art  of  the  Renaissance  sprung 
from  the  passion  for  self-expression.  The. 
Reformation  took  self  as  the  hammer  "which 
broke  the  yoke  of  the  Roman  Church.  Self 
stood  on  its  feet  and  faced  God  ;  what  need 
of  priests  and  intermediaries  ?  Montaigne  is 
a  great  exponent  of  this  spirit.  A  man  of 
letters  and  a  philosopher,  he  did  not  find  in 
duty  an  explanation  of  life,  but  he  realized 
the  significance  of  this  imperious  self,  this  I, 
I,  I,  that  proclaims  itself  to  be  at  the  bottom 
of  everything.  Step  by  step,  as  he  goes  from 
Plato  to  Cicero,  from  Cicero  to  Seneca,  from 
Seneca  to  Plutarch,  he  discovers  humanity 
taking  individual  form ;  compressed  into  the 
hkeness  of  a  single  man,  it  puts  on  familiar 
features,  it  speaks  with  a  well-known  voice, 
turns  and  shapes  itself  in  the  mould  of  a 
single  human  mind :  that  face,  that  voice, 
that  mind,  are  his  own.  Start  how  he  will, 
every  road  twists  and  winds  back  to  himself. 
As  if  by  compulsion  he  gradually  renounces 
all  other  study.  In  self  is  to  be  found  the 
philosophy  of  life.  If  we  once  firmly  accept 
the  notion  that  we  know  nothing  but  our- 
selves, then  the  universe  outside  becomes  a 


MONTAIGNE  103 

shadowy  collection  of  vapors,  mysterious,  hy- 
pothetical, and  self  hardens  into  the  only 
reality.  Here  is  a  basis  for  a  religion  or  a 
philosophy.  So  speculating,  the  philosopher 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  artist.  If  self  be  the 
field  of  philosophy,  it  is  the  opportunity  of 
the  artist.  Never  had  a  man  of  letters  sat 
to  himself  for  his  own  portrait.  Montaigne 
is  the  "  prince  of  egotists,"  because  he  is  a 
philosopher  and  a  great  artist.  He  is  a  skep- 
tic, but  he  points  a  way  to  positive  doctrine. 
He  is  a  man  of  letters,  but  he  teaches  the 
primary  rules  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
He  is  a  member  of  the  Holy  Church,  Apos- 
tolic and  Roman,  but  he  lays  the  foundation 
of  a  philosophy  open  to  Reformer  and  to 
infidel.  Profoundly  interested  in  the  ques- 
tions lying  at  the  base  of  hfe,  he  is  one  of 
the  greatest  artists  of  the  Renaissance. 

n 

Montaigne  was  a  Gascon,  of  a  family  of 
merchants.  His  great-grandfather,  Ramon 
Eyquem,  founded  the  family  fortunes  by 
trade,  and  bettered  them  by  a  prudent  mar- 
riage. He  became  one  of  the  richest  mer- 
chants of  Bordeaux,  deaHng  in  wine  and  salt 


104  MONTAIGNE 

fisH,  and  bought  the  estate  of  Montaigne,  a 
little  seigniory  near  the  river  Dordogne,  not 
very  far  from  the  city.  His  son,  Grimon,  also 
prospered,  and  in  his  turn  left  to  his  son, 
Pierre,  Montaigne's  father,  so  good  a  property 
that  Pierre  was  enabled  to  give  up  trade,  and 
betake  himself  to  arms.  Pierre  served  for 
several  years  in  Italy,  under  Francis  I.  On 
his  return  he  married  Antoinette  de  Louppes, 
or  Lopes,  a  rich  lady  of  Spanish  descent,  with 
some  Jewish  blood  in  her  veins.  He  was  an 
active,  hard-working,  conscientious,  capable 
man,  devoting  himself  to  public  affairs.  He 
held  one  office  after  another  in  the  city  of 
Bordeaux,  and  finally  was  elected  mayor.  He 
took  especial  interest  in  education,  improv- 
ing the  schools,  and  making  changes  for  the 
better  in  the  college.  His  interest  amounted 
to  a  hobby,  if  we  may  judge  from  his  method 
of  educating  his  son.  His  years  in  Italy  had 
opened  his  mind,  and  though  no  scholar  him- 
self, he  was  a  great  admirer  of  the  new  learn- 
ing, and  sought  the  company  of  scholars. 
Evidently,  he  was  a  man  who  liked  to  think, 
and  was  not  afraid  to  put  his  ideas  into 
practice.  He  enlarged  the  seigniory  of  Mon- 
taigne and  rebuilt  the  chateau.     His  son  says 


MONTAIGNE  105 

of  him  that  he  was  the  hest  father  that  ever 
was ;  that  he  was  ambitious  to  do  everythmg 
tliat  was  honorable,  and  had  a  very  high  re- 
gard for  his  word. 

Michel  was  born  on  the  last  day  of  Febru- 
ary, 1533.  He  was  the  third  of  eleven  chil- 
dren ;  the  two  elder  died  in  infancy.  His 
education  began  at  once.  Still  a  baby,  he 
was  put  in  charge  of  some  peasants  who 
lived  near  the  chateau,  in  order  that  his 
earliest  notions  should  be  of  simple  things. 
His  god-parents  were  country  folk  ;  for  Pierre 
Eyquem  deemed  it  better  that  his  son  should 
early  learn  to  make  friends  "  with  those  who 
stretch  their  arms  toward  us  rather  than  with 
those  who  turn  their  backs  on  us.'*  The  sec- 
ond step  in  education  was  to  direct  Michel's 
mind  so  that  it  should  naturally  take  the  he- 
roic Roman  mould.  His  father  thoug;ht  that 
this  result  would  be  more  likely  to  follow 
if  the  baby  spoke  Latin.  He  was  therefore 
put  into  the  hands  of  a  learned  German,  who 
spoke  Latin  very  well,  and  could  speak  no 
French.  There  were  also  two  other  scholars 
in  attendance  on  the  little  boy,  —  less  learned, 
however,  —  who  took  turns  with  the  German 
in  accompanying  him.     They  also  spoke  no- 


106  MONTAIGNE 

thing  but  Latin  in  Michel's  presence.  "  As 
for  the  rest  of  the  household,  it  was  an  in- 
violable rule  that  neither  my  father  nor 
mother,  nor  the  man  servant  nor  the  maid 
servant,  should  speak  when  I  was  by,  except 
some  Latin  words  which  they  had  learned 
on  purpose  to  talk  with  me."  This  rule  was 
so  well  obeyed  that  not  only  his  father  and 
mother  learned  enough  Latin  to  understand 
it  and  to  speak  it  a  little,  but  also  the  ser- 
vants who  waited  on  him.  In  fact,  they  all 
became  so  very  Latin  that  even  the  people 
in  the  village  called  various  implements  and 
utensils  by  their  Latin  names.  Montaigne 
was  more  than  six  years  old  before  he  heard 
any  French  Spoken ;  he  spoke  Latin  as  if  it 
were  his  native  tongue. 

At  six  Montaigne  was  sent  to  the  College 
of  Guyenne,  in  Bordeaux,  where  his  Latin 
began  to  get  bad,  and  served  no  better  pur- 
pose than  to  make  his  studies  so  easy  that 
he  was  quickly  put  into  the  higher  classes. 
He  stayed  at  college  till  he  had  completed 
the  course  in  1546,  when  he  was  thirteen 
years  old.  He  says  that  he  took  no  know- 
ledge of  any  value  away  mth  him.  This 
statement   must   be    taken  with  a  grain  of 


MONTAIGNE  107 

salt,  for  he  had  been  under  the  care  of  fa- 
mous scholars,  and  instead  of  wasting  his 
time  over  poor  books  or  in  idleness  he  had 
read  the  best  Latin  authors.  He  did  not 
even  know  the  name  of  Amadis  of  Gaul,  but 
fell  upon  Ovid,  Virgil,  Terence,  and  Plautus. 
After  them  he  read  the  Italian  comedies. 
This  reading  was  done  on  the  sly,  the  teach- 
ers winking  at  it.  "  Had  they  not  done  so," 
he  says,  "  I  should  have  left  college  with  a 
hatred  for  books,  like  almost  all  the  young 
nobility." 

Whether  or  not,  so  bred,  Montaigne  be- 
came more  like  Scipio  and  Cato  Major,  his 
father's  interest  in  education  no  doubt  stim- 
ulated his  own.  In  all  the  shrewdness  of 
the  Essays  there  is  no  more  definite  and 
practical  teaching  than  his  advice  on  edu- 
cation, especially  in  his  asseverations  of  its 
large  purposes.  "  There  is  nothing  so  no- 
ble," he  says,  "as  to  make  a  man  what  he 
should  be ;  there  is  no  learning  comparable 
to  the  knowledge  of  how  to  live  this  hfe 
aright  and  according  to  the  laws  of  nature." 
Montaigne  laid  down,  clearly  and  sharply, 
principles  that  sound  commonplace  to-day  : 
that  the  object  of  education  is  to  make,  not 


108  MONTAIGNE 

a  scholar,  but  a  man ;  that  education  shall 
concern  itself  with  the  understanding  rather 
than  with  the  memory  ;  that  mind  and  body 
must  be  developed  together.  It  would  be 
easy  to  quote  pages.  "  To  know  by  heart  is 
not  to  know ;  it  is  only  holding  on  to  what 
has  been  put  into  the  custody  of  the  memory. 
.  .  .  We  receive  as  bailiffs  the  opinions  and 
learning  of  others ;  we  must  make  them  our 
own.  .  .  .  We  learn  to  say  Cicero  says  this, 
Plato  thinks  this,  these  are  Aristotle's  words ; 
but  we,  what  do  we  say  ?  What  do  we  do  ? 
What  is  our  opinion  ?  ...  If  the  mind  does 
not  acquire  a  better  temper,  if  the  judgment 
does  not  become  more  sound,  I  had  as  lief 
the  schoolboy  should  pass  his  time  playing 
tennis :  his  body,  at  least,  would  be  more  sup- 
ple. See  him  come  back  after  years  spent : 
there  is  nothing  so  unfit  for  use;  all  that 
you  see  more  than  he  had  before  is  that 
his  Latin  and  Greek  leave  him  more  silly 
and  conceited  than  when  he  left  home.  He 
ought  to  have  brought  back  a  full  mind :  he 
brings  it  back  blown  out ;  instead  of  having 
it  bigger,  it  is  only  puffed  up.  ...  It  is  also 
an  opinion  accepted  by  everybody  that  a  boy 
ought  not  to  be  brought  up  round  his  parents' 


MONTAIGNE  109 

knees.  Natural  affection  makes  them  too  ten- 
der and  too  soft ;  they  are  not  able  to  punish 
his  faults,  nor  to  see  him  nourished  hardily, 
as  he  should  be,  and  run  risks.  They  won't 
let  him  come  back  sweating  and  dusty  from 
exercise,  drink  hot,  drink  cold,  nor  see  him 
on  a  horse  backwards,  nor  facing  a  rough 
fencer  foil  in  hand,  nor  with  his  first  gun. 
There 's  no  help  for  it :  if  you  wish  to  make 
a  man,  you  must  not  spare  him  such  matters 
of  youth.  You  must  often  break  the  rules 
of  medicine.  It  is  not  enough  to  make  his 
sold  firm  ;  his  muscles  must  be  firm  too. 
The  soul  is  too  hard  pressed  if  she  be  not 
supported  well,  and  has  too  much  to  do  if 
she  must  furnish  strength  for  both." 

Montaigne  himself  must  have  learned  the 
value  of  exercise,  for  he  became  a  great 
horseman,  more  at  home  on  horseback  than 
on  foot.  Till  the  time  of  ill  health  he  seems 
to  have  had  a  vigorous  body  ;  he  could  sit 
in  the  saddle  for  eight  or  ten  hours,  and 
survived  a  very  severe  fall,  though  he  "  vom- 
ited buckets  of  blood." 

Of  Montaigne's  life  after  leaving  the  col- 
lege we  know  little  or  nothing.  He  must 
have  studied  law,  —  perhaps  at  the  Univer- 


110  MONTAIGNE 

sity  of  Toulouse,  perhaps  in  Bordeaux.  But 
matters  other  than  the  classics  or  civil  law, 
and  more  profitable  to  a  great  critic  of  life, 
must  have  been  rumbling  in  his  ears,  mak- 
ing him  begin  to  speculate  on  the  opinions 
and  customs  of  men,  and  their  reasonable- 
ness. Already  troubles  prophetic  of  civil 
war  were  afoot. 

Ill 

In  1554  the  king  established  a  Court  of 
Aids  at  Perigueux.  Pierre  Eyquem  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  magistrates,  but  before 
he  took  his  seat  he  was  elected  mayor  of 
Bordeaux,  and  resigned  his  position  as  mem- 
ber of  the  court  in  favor  of  his  son,  who, 
under  the  system  then  prevalent,  became 
magistrate  in  his  stead.  Montaigne  was 
twenty-one  years  old.  After  a  year  or  two 
the  Court  of  Aids  was  annulled,  and  its 
magistrates  were  made  members  of  the  Parle- 
ment  of  Bordeaux.  Here  Montaigne  met 
Etienne  de  La  Boetie,  who  was  also  a  mem- 
ber. The  two  men  at  once  became  most  lov- 
ing friends.  La  Boetie  had  a  noble,  pas- 
sionate character.  Montaigne  says  that  he 
was  cast  in  the  heroic  mould,   an  antique 


MONTAIGNE  111 

Roman,  the  greatest  man  of  their  time.  Af- 
ter six  years  La  Boetie  died,  in  1563.  Seven- 
teen years  later,  while  traveling  in  Italy, 
Montaigne  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  All  of  a  sud- 
den I  fell  to  thinking  about  M.  de  La  Boetie, 
and  I  stayed  so  long  without  shaking  the  fit 
off  that  it  made  me  feel  very  sad."  This 
was  the  master  affection  of  Montaigne's  life, 
and  the  noblest.  It  was  a  friendship  "  so 
whole,  so  perfect,  that  there  are  none  such  to 
be  read  of,  and  among  men  to-day  there  is  no 
trace  to  be  seen.  There  is  need  of  so  happy 
a  meeting  to  fashion  it  that  fortune  does  well 
if  it  happens  once  in  three  hundred  years." 
They  were  wont  to  call  each  other  "  brother." 
"  In  truth,  the  name  of  brother  is  beautiful 
and  full  of  sweetness  ;  for  this  reason  he  and 
I  gave  it  to  the  bond  between  us." 

La  Boetie  died  of  the  plague,  or  some  dis- 
ease like  it.  He  told  Montaisfne  that  his 
illness  was  contagious,  and  besought  him  to 
stay  with  him  no  more  than  a  few  minutes 
at  a  time,  but  as  often  as  he  could.  From 
that  time  Montaigne  never  left  him.  This 
act  must  be  remembered,  if  we  incline  to 
blame  Montaigne  for  shunning  Bordeaux 
when  the  plague  was  upon  it. 


112  MONTAIGNE 

Two  years  afterwards  Montaigne  married 
Frangoise  de  la  Chassaigne.  It  was  a  match 
made  from  considerations  of  suitability.  The 
Eyquems  were  thrifty  wooers.  Montaigne 
had  no  romantic  notions  about  love  in  mar- 
riage ;  he  did  not  seek  a  "  Cato's  daugh- 
ter" who  should  help  him  climb  the  heights 
of  life.  He  says :  "  The  most  useful  and 
honorable  knowledge  and  occupation  for  a 
mother  of  a  family  is  the  knowledge  of 
housekeeping.  That  should  be  a  woman's 
predominant  attribute ;  that  is  what  a  man 
should  look  for  when  he  goes  a-courting. 
From  what  experience  has  taught  me,  I 
should  require  of  a  wife,  above  all  other  vir- 
tues, that  of  the  housewife."  Nevertheless, 
they  were  very  happily  married.  She  was  a 
woman  of  good  sense  and  ability,  and  looked 
after  the  affairs  of  the  seigniory  with  a  much 
quicker  eye  than  her  husband.  He  dedicated 
to  her  a  translation  made  by  La  Boetie  from 
Plutarch.  "  Let  us  live,"  he  says,  "  you  and 
me,  after  the  old  French  fashion.  ...  I  do 
not  think  I  have  a  friend  more  intimate 
than  you." 

Montaiscne  remained  masfistrate  for  fifteen 
years.    He  did  not  find  the  duties  very  much 


MONTAIGNE  113 

to  his  taste,  but  he  must  have  acquitted 
himself  well,  because  a  year  or  two  after  his 
retirement  the  king  decorated  him  with  the 
Order  of  St.  Michael.  These  years  of  his 
magistracy  were  calm  enough  for  Montaigne, 
but  they  were  not  calm  for  France.  In  1562 
the  civil  wars  broke  out.  There  is  some- 
thing too  fish-blooded  about  a  man  who  sits 
in  the  "  back  of  his  shop  "  and  attends  to 
his  judicial  duties  or  writes  essays,  clammily 
watching  events,  while  the  country  is  on  fire. 
But  what  has  a  skeptic  to  do  with  divine 
rig-hts  of  kinofs  or  divine  revelations? 

Little  by  little  Montaigne  was  getting 
ready  to  forsake  the  magistracy  for  literature. 
He  began  by  translating,  at  his  father's  wish, 
the  "  Theologia  Naturalis  "  of  Raymond  de 
Sebonde,  —  a  treatise  which  undertook  to 
establish  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion 
by  a  process  of  reasoning.  His  father  died 
before  he  finished  it.  It  was  published  in 
1569.  The  next  year  Montaigne  resigned 
his  seat  in  the  Parlement  of  Bordeaux,  and 
devoted  himself  to  the  publication  of  various 
manuscripts  left  by  La  Boetie.  This  done, 
the  new  Seigneur  de  Montaigne  —  he  dropped 
the  unaristocratic  name  of  Eyquem  —  retired 


114  MONTAIGNE 

to  his  seigniory,  "  with  a  resolution  to  avoid 
all  manner  of  concern  in  affairs  as  much  as 
possible,  and  to  spend  the  small  remainder 
of  his  life  in  privacy  and  peace."  There  he 
lived  for  nine  years,  riding  over  his  estates, 
planting,  tending,  —  or  more  wisely  suffer- 
ing his  wife  to  superintend,  —  receiving  his 
friends,  hospitable,  enjoying  opportunities 
to  talk,  or  more  happy  still  in  his  library. 
Here,  in  the  second  story  of  his  tower,  shut 
off  from  the  buzz  of  household  life,  his 
friends,  Plutarch,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Herodotus, 
Plato,  with  a  thousand  volumes  more,  on  the 
shelves,  the  ceiling  carved  with  aphorisms, 
Latin  and  Greek,  he  used  to  sit  fulfilling  his 
inscription  :  "In  the  year  of  Christ  1571,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-eight,  on  his  birthday,  the 
day  before  the  calends  of  March,  Michel  de 
Montaigne,  having  quitted  some  time  ago 
the  servitude  of  courts  and  public  duties, 
has  come,  still  in  good  health,  to  rest  among 
the  Muses.  In  peace  and  safety  he  wiU  pass 
here  what  days  remain  for  him  to  live,  in  the 
hope  that  the  Fates  will  allow  him  to  perfect 
this  habitation,  this  sweet  paternal  asylum 
consecrated  to  independence,  tranquillity, 
and  leisure." 


MONTAIGNE  115 

IV 

It  was  quiet  in  the  Chateau  de  Montaigne ; 
Phitarch  and  Cicero  sat  undisturbed,  except 
for  notes  scribbled  on  their  margins  ;  but  in 
Paris  the  Duke  of  Guise  and  the  royal  house 
were  making  St.  Bartholomew  a  memorable 
day.  Civil  war  again  ravaged  France,  the 
League  conspired  with  Spain,  Henry  of  Na- 
varre rallied  the  Huguenots,  while  the  king, 
Henry  HI.,  dangled  between  them,  making 
and  breaking  edicts.  The  Seigneur  de  Mon- 
taigne rode  about  his  estates,  or  sat  in  his  li- 
brary, writing  "  Concerning  Idleness,"  "  Con- 
cerning Pedantry,"  "  Concerning  Coaches," 
"  Concerning  Solitude,"  "  Concerning  Sump- 
tuary Laws." 

The  most  apathetic  of  us,  knowing  that 
Henry  of  Navarre  and  Henry  of  Guise  are 
in  the  field,  become  so  many  Hotspurs  at 
the  thought  of  this  liberal-minded  gentle- 
man, the  Order  of  St.  Michael  hanging 
round  his  neck,  culling  anecdotes  out  of 
Plutarch  about  Cyrus  or  Scipio.  "  Zounds  ! 
how  has  he  leisure  to  be  sick  in  such  a  jus- 
tling  time ! "  We  readers  are  a  whimsical 
people  ;  cushioned  in  armchairs,  we  catch  on 


116  MONTAIGNE 

fire  at  the  white  plume  of  Navarre.  What 
is  the  free  play  of  thought  to  us  ?  Give  us 
sword  and  pistol, —  Ventr e- Saint- Gr is  !  But 
the  best  fighting  has  not  been  done  on  bat- 
tlefields, and  Montaigne  has  helped  the  cause 
of  justice  and  humanity  better  than  twenty 
thousand  armed  men. 

Once,  when  there  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  an  immediate  prospect  of  a  fight,  Mon- 
taigne offered  his  services  to  one  of  the 
king's  generals.  Instead  of  being  ordered 
to  the  field,  he  was  sent  back  to  Bordeaux 
to  haranofue  the  Parlement  on  the  need  of 
new  fortifications.  He  was  a  loyal  servant 
of  the  king,  and  deemed  the  Huguenots  a 
rebellious  faction,  fighting  against  lawful  au- 
thority ;  but  his  heart  could  not  take  sides ; 
he  was  disgusted  with  the  hypocrisy  of  both 
parties,  and  the  mask  of  religion.  "I  see 
it  is  evident  that  we  render  only  those  offices 
to  piety  which  tickle  our  passions.  There  is 
no  enmity  so  excellent  as  the  Christian.  Our 
zeal  does  wonders,  when  it  goes  following 
our  inclination  toward  hate,  cruelty,  ambi- 
tion, avarice,  detraction,  rebellion.  But  the 
converse, — toward  goodness,  kindness,  tem- 
perance, —  if,  as  by  miracle,  some  rare  con- 


MONTAIGNE  117 

junction  takes  it  that  way,  it  goes  neither 
afoot  nor  with  wings.  Our  religion  was 
made  to  pluck  out  vices ;  it  uncovers  them, 
nurses  them,  encourages  them.  .  .  .  Let  us 
confess  the  truth :  he  that  should  pick  out 
from  the  army,  even  the  loyal  army,  those 
who  march  there  only  for  zeal  of  religious 
feeling,  and  also  those  who  singly  consider 
the  maintenance  of  their  country's  laws  or 
the  service  of  their  sovereign,  he  could  not 
make  a  corporal's  guard  of  them." 

Montaigne  was  a  Catholic.  He  did  not 
share  that  passionate  care  of  conduct  which 
animated  the  Reformers.  He  did  not  see 
that  the  truth  of  a  religion  was  affected  by 
the  misbehavior  of  its  priests.  When  he 
heard,  in  Rome,  that  "  the  general  of  the 
Cordeliers  had  been  deprived  of  his  place, 
and  locked  up,  because  in  a  sermon,  in  pre- 
sence of  the  Pope  and  the  cardinals,  he  had 
accused  the  prelates  of  the  Church  of  lazi- 
ness and  ostentation,  without  particularity, 
only,  speaking  in  commonplaces,  on  this  sub- 
ject," Montaigne  merely  felt  that  civil  lib- 
erty had  been  abused.  He  was  not  troubled 
to  find  the  ceremonies  in  St.  Peter's  "  more 
magnificent  than  devotional,"  nor  to  learn 


118  MONTAIGNE 

that  the  Pope,  Gregory  XIII.,  had  a  son. 
He  was  amused  at  the  luxurious  ways  of  the 
cardinals.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
onaitre  d' hotel  of  Cardinal  Caraffa.  "I  made 
him  tell  me  of  his  employment.  He  dis- 
coursed on  the  science  of  the  gullet  with  the 
gravity  and  countenance  of  a  judge,  as  if 
he  had  been  talking  of  some  grave  point  of 
theology  ;  he  deciphered  a  difference  of  ap- 
petites, —  that  which  one  has  when  hungry, 
that  which  one  has  after  the  second  and 
after  the  third  course ;  the  means  first  merely 
to  please  it,  then  to  wake  it  and  prick  it ; 
the  policy  of  sauces,"  etc.  He  heard  on  the 
portico  of  St.  Peter's  a  canon  of  the  Chru-ch 
"  read  aloud  a  Latin  bull,  by  which  an  im- 
mense number  of  people  were  excommuni- 
cated, among  others  the  Huguenots,  by  that 
very  name,  and  all  princes  who  withheld 
any  of  the  lands  of  the  Church.  At  this 
article  the  cardinals,  Medici  and  Caraffa,  who 
were  next  to  the  Pope,  laughed  very  hard." 
The  Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace  had  sub- 
jected the  Essays  to  examination,  and  found 
faidt  with  Montaigne's  notion  that  torture  in 
addition  to  death  was  cruelty.  Montaigne 
replied  that  he  did  not  know  that  the  opinion 


MONTAIGNE  119 

was  heretical.  To  his  mind,  such  matters 
had  nothing  to  do  with  truth  or  religion. 
He  accepted  the  Apostolic  Roman  Catholic 
faith.  He  was  not  disposed  to  take  a  single 
step  out  of  the  fold.  If  one,  why  not  two  ? 
And  if  reason  once  mutinied  and  took  con- 
trol, where  would  it  stop?  He  denied  the 
competence  of  human  reason  to  investigate 
things  divine.  "  Man  can  only  be  what  he 
is ;  he  can  only  imagine  according  to  his 
measure." 

To  a  man  who  took  pleasure  in  travels, 
foibles,  whims,  philosophy,  to  a  man  of  the 
Renaissance  full  of  eagerness  to  study  the 
ancients  and  to  enjoy  them,  to  a  man  by  no 
means  attracted  by  the  austerities  of  the  Cal- 
vinists,  a  war  for  the  sake  of  supplanting  the 
old  religion  of  France  was  greatly  distaste- 
fid.  He  could  not  but  admit  that  the  Hugue- 
nots were  right  so  far  as  they  only  wished 
liberty  of  worship,  nor  fail  to  respect  their 
obedience  to  conscience.  But  his  heart  had 
not  the  heroic  temper ;  he  wanted  peace, 
comfort,  scholarship,  elegance.  It  is  one 
thing  to  sit  in  a  library  and  admire  heroic 
men  in  the  pages  of  Plutarch,  and  another 
to  enjoy  living  in  the  midst  of  them. 


l20  MONTAIGNE 

Montaigne  spent  these  years  in  pleasant 
peacefiilness,  dawdling  over  his  library,  and 
putting  his  Essays  together  scrap  by  scrap. 
In  1580,  at  the  age  of  forty-seven,  he  pub- 
lished the  first  two  books  of  his  Essays, 
which  had  an  immediate  and  great  success. 
After  this  he  was  obliged  to  forego  literature 
for  a  time,  because  he  was  not  well.  He 
had  little  confidence  in  doctors,  but  hoped 
that  he  could  get  benefit  by  drinking  natural 
waters.  Therefore  he  went  travelino-.  He 
also  wanted  to  see  the  world  :  Rome,  with 
which  he  had  been  familiar  from  boyhood, 
and  Italy,  of  which  he  had  heard  so  much 
from  his  father,  and  all  strange  lands.  Per- 
haps, too,  he  was  not  unmindful  that  he  was 
now  not  only  the  Seigneur  de  Montaigne, 
but  the  first  man  of  letters  in  France,  not 
even  excepting  Ronsard.  He  set  forth  in 
the  summer  of  1580,  with  his  brother  and 
several  friends,  journeying  on  horseback  to 
Switzerland,  Germany,  and  Italy.  He  kept 
a  journal,  which  contains  notes  of  travel,  and 
also  a  full  account  of  the  effects  of  medicinal 
waters  on  his  health.  The  interest  of  the 
journal  consists  chiefly  in  the  pictures  of 
those  countries  at  that  time,  sketched  by  an 


MONTAIGNE  121 

intelligent  traveler ;  but  now  and  again  there 
is  a  more  personal  interest,  when  Montaigne 
sees  something  that  excites  his  curiosity. 
There  is  a  likeness  in  his  curiosity  for  for- 
eign lands  and  his  curiosity  for  ideas.  He 
travels  into  Germany  as  if  it  were  a  new  vol- 
ume of  Plutarch.  He  is  agog  for  novelty, 
and  new  ways  of  life,  new  points  of  view. 
His  secretary  says :  "I  never  saw  him  less 
tired  nor  less  complaining  of  ill  health ;  he 
was  in  high  spirits  both  travehng  and  stop- 
ping, so  absorbed  in  what  he  met,  and  al- 
ways looking  for  opportunities  to  talk  to 
strangers.  ...  I  think  if  he  had  been  alone 
with  his  servants  he  would  have  gone  to 
Cracow  or  to  Greece  overland,  rather  than 
directly  into  Italy." 

In  this  journal,  written  first  at  his  direc- 
tion, perhaps  at  his  dictation,  by  a  secretary, 
and  then,  with  some  inconvenience,  as  he 
says,  by  himself,  we  find  his  interests  and 
affections  in  the  light  and  shadow  of  the 
first  impression.  In  the  Essays  every  para- 
graph is  the  cud  of  long  rumination.  Of 
Rome  the  journal  says:  "We  see  nothing  of 
Rome  but  the  sky  under  which  she  hes  and 
the  place  of  her  abode ;  knowledge  of  her 


122  MONTAIGNE 

is  an  abstraction,  framed  by  thought,  with 
which  the  senses  have  no  concern.  Those 
who  say  that  the  ruins  of  Rome  at  least  are 
to  be  seen  say  too  much,  for  the  ruins  of  so 
tremendous  a  fabric  would  bring  more  honor 
and  reverence  to  her  memory  ;  here  is  no- 
thing but  her  place  of  burial.  The  world, 
hostile  to  her  long  dominion,  has  first  broken 
and  dashed  to  pieces  all  the  parts  of  that  ad- 
mirable body ;  and  because,  even  when  dead, 
overthrown  and  mutilated,  she  still  made  the 
world  afraid,  it  has  buried  even  the  ruins. 
The  little  show  of  them  that  appears  above 
the  sepulchre  has  been  preserved  by  fortune, 
to  bear  witness  to  that  matchless  grandeur 
which  centuries,  conflagrations,  conspiracies 
of  a  world  again  and  again  plotting  its  ruin, 
have  failed  to  destroy  utterly." 

Rome,  "  the  noblest  city  that  ever  was  or 
ever  will  be,"  had  laid  hold  of  his  imagina- 
tion. He  says,  "  I  used  all  the  five  senses 
that  nature  gave  me  to  obtain  the  title  of 
Roman  Citizen,  if  it  were  only  for  the  an- 
cient honor  and  religious  memory  of  its  au- 
thority." By  the  help  of  a  friend,  the  Pope's 
influence  procured  him  this  dignity.  The 
decree,  bearing  the  S.  P.  Q.  R.,  "  pompous 


MONTAIGNE  123 

•with  seals  and  gilt  letters,"  gave  him  great 
pleasure. 

He  showed  special  interest  in  strange  cus- 
toms, as  in  the  rite  of  circumcision,  and  in 
a  ceremony  of  exorcising  an  evil  spirit.  This 
examination  of  other  ways  of  Hving,  other 
habits  of  thought,  is  the  lever  by  which  he 
lifts  himself  out  of  prejudices,  out  of  the 
circle  of  authority,  into  his  free  and  open- 
minded  state.  He  always  wished  to  see  men 
who  looked  at  life  from  other  points  of  view. 
In  Rome,  as  his  secretary  writes,  "  M.  de 
Montaigne  was  vexed  to  find  so  many  French- 
men there ;  he  hardly  met  anybody  in  the 
street  who  did  not  greet  him  in  his  own 
tongue."  In  the  Essays  Montaigne  says 
that,  for  education,  acquaintance  with  men 
is  wonderfully  good,  and  also  to  travel  in 
foreign  lands ;  not  to  bring  back  (after  the 
fashion  of  the  French  nobility)  nothing  but 
the  measures  of  the  Pantheon,  but  to  take 
home  a  knowledge  of  foreign  ways  of  thought 
and  of  behavior,  and  to  rub  and  pohsh  our 
minds  against  those  of  others. 


124  MONTAIGNE 


While  abroad,  Montaigne  received  word, 
in  September,  1581,  that  he  had  been  elected 
mayor  of  Bordeaux,  to  succeed  the  Marechal 
de  Biron.  He  hesitated,  he  had  no  mind  to 
give  up  his  freedom ;  but  the  king  sent  an 
order,  flattering  and  peremptory,  that  he 
should  betake  himself  to  his  office  "  without 
delay  or  excuse,"  and  accordingly  he  went. 

It  seems  likely  that  there  was  some  hand 
behind  the  scenes  which  pointed  out  to  the 
councilors  a  man  who  would  be  acceptable 
to  persons  in  high  place.  The  Marechal  de 
Biron  wished  to  be  reelected,  but  both  the 
king  and  Henry  of  Navarre,  the  nominal 
governor  of  Guyenne,  were  opposed  to  him. 
History  does  not  tell  what  happened,  but  the 
mayoralty  was  given  to  this  distinguished, 
quiet  gentleman,  who  had  kept  carefully 
aloof  from  partisanship.  The  office  of  mayor 
was  not  very  burdensome ;  the  ordinary  duties 
of  administration  fell  upon  others.  Mon- 
taigne's first  term  of  two  years  passed  un- 
eventfully. De  Thou,  the  historian,  who 
knew  him  at  this  time,  says  that  he  learned 
much   from  Montaigne,  a   man  "  very  well 


MONTAIGNE  125 

versed  in  public  affairs,  especially  in  those 
concerning  Guyenne,  which  he  knows  thor- 
oughly." In  1583  he  was  reelected.  Times 
grew  more  troubled.  On  the  death  of  the 
king's  brother,  Navarre  became  heir  to  the 
throne.  The  League,  alarmed,  made  new 
efforts.  Guise  made  a  secret  treaty  with 
Spain  that  Navarre  should  not  be  recognized 
as  king.  Coming  storms  began  to  blow  up 
about  Bordeaux.  The  League  plotted  to 
seize  the  city.  Poor  Montaigne  found  him- 
s.elf  in  the  midst  of  excursions  and  alarms. 
He  was  glad  to  lay  down  his  charge  when 
his  term  ended,  on  July  31,  1585.  In  June 
a  horrible  plague  broke  out,  while  Montaigne 
was  away,  and  people  in  Bordeaux  died  by 
hundreds.  The  council  asked  him  to  come 
to  town  to  preside  over  the  election  of  his 
successor.  He  answered,  *^I  will  not  spare 
my  life  or  anything  in  your  service,  and  I 
leave  you  to  judge  whether  what  I  can  do 
for  you  by  my  presence  at  the  next  election 
makes  it  worth  while  for  me  to  run  the  risk 
of  going  to  town."  The  council  did  not  in- 
sist, and  Montaigne  did  not  go.  This  is  the 
act  of  his  life  which  has  called  forth  blame, 
not  from  his  contemporaries,  but  from  stout- 


126  MONTAIGNE 

hearted  critics  and  heroic  reviewers.  To  set 
an  example  of  indifference  to  death  is  out- 
side the  ordinary  path  of  duty.  We  like  to 
hear  tell  of  splendid  recklessness  of  Ufe,  of 
fools  who  go  to  death  out  of  a  mad  desire 
to  stamp  the  fear  of  it  under  their  feet ;  and 
when  disappointed  of  so  fine  a  show,  we  be- 
come petulant,  we  betray  that  we  are  over- 
fond  of  excitement.  It  was  not  the  mayor's 
duty  to  look  after  the  public  health  ;  that 
lay  upon  the  council. 

His  office  ended,  Montaigne  went  back  to 
his  library,  to  revise  and  correct  the  first 
two  books  of  his  Essays,  to  stuff  them  with 
new  paragraphs  and  quotations,  and  to  write 
a  third.  But  he  could  not  retire  far  enough 
to  get  away  from  the  sounds  of  civil  war. 
Coutras  was  but  a  little  too  far  for  him  to 
hear  Navarre  harangue  his  troops  to  victory, 
and  the  voices  of  the  soldiers  singing  the 
psalm  :  — 

"  This  is  the  day  which  the  Lord  hath  made 
We  will  rejoice  and  be  glad  in  it." 

A  few  days  afterwards  Henry  of  Navarre 
stopped  at  the  chateau  and  dined  with  Mon-     f 
taigne.     He    had   once   before   been    there, 
making  a  visit  of  two  days,  when  Montaigne 


MONTAIGNE  127 

was  still  mayor.  The  relations  of  these  two 
men  are  interesting,  but  somewhat  difficult 
to  decipher.  De  Thou  relates  that  Mon- 
taigne talked  to  him  about  Henry  of  Navarre 
and  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and  their  hatred  one 
of  the  other,  and  said  :  "  As  for  religion, 
both  make  parade  of  it ;  it  is  a  fine  pretext 
to  make  those  of  their  party  follow  them. 
But  the  interest  of  religion  does  n't  touch 
either  of  them ;  only  the  fear  of  being  aban- 
doned by  the  Protestants  prevents  the  king 
of  Navarre  from  returning  to  the  religion  of 
his  ancestors,  and  the  duke  would  betake 
himself  to  the  Augsburg  Confession,  for 
which  his  uncle,  Charles,  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine, had  given  him  a  taste,  if  he  could 
follow  it  without  prejudice  to  his  interests." 
But  Navarre,  though  he  was  open-minded 
on  the  subject  of  creeds,  and  a  most  dexter- 
ous politician,  was  a  noble  and  loyal  gentle- 
man, as  Montaigne,  with  his  keen,  unpreju- 
diced eyes,  could  well  see.  Navarre  had 
been  bred  a  Protestant,  his  friends  were  Pro- 
testants, and  he  would  not  forswear  his  reli- 
gion so  long  as  abjuration  might  work  harm 
to  them.  When  his  conversion  became  of 
great  moment  to  France,  and  promised  to 


128  MONTAIGNE 

confer  the  blessings  of  peace  on  the  country 
without  hurt  to  the  Protestants,  he  turned 
Cathohc.  This  was  conduct  such  as  Mon- 
taigne would  most  heartily  approve.  Henry 
IV.  acted  as  if  he  had  been  nursed  on  the 
Essays.  And  there  is  much  to  show  that  De 
Thou's  conversation  is  a  very  incorrect  ac- 
count of  Montaigne's  opinion  of  Henry. 

After  Henry  had  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
and  was  still  strugghng  with  the  League, 
Montaigne  wrote  to  him :  "  I  have  always 
thought  of  you  as  enjoying  the  good  for- 
tune to  which  you  have  come,  and  you  may 
remember  that,  even  when  I  was  obliged  to 
confess  it  to  the  cure,  I  always  hoped  for 
your  success.  Now,  with  more  cause  and 
more  freedom,  I  salute  it  with  full  affection. 
Your  success  serves  you  where  you  are,  but 
it  serves  you  no  less  here  by  reputation. 
The  noise  does  as  much  as  the  shot.  We 
could  not  draw  from  the  justice  of  your 
cause  arguments  to  establish  or  win  your 
subjects  so  strong  as  we  do  from  the  news 
of  the  prosperity  of  your  enterprises.  .  .  . 
The  inclinations  of  people  flow  in  a  tide.  If 
the  incline  is  once  in  your  favor,  it  will 
sweep  on  of  its  own  weight,  to  the  very  end. 


MONTAIGNE  129 

I  should  have  liked  very  much  that  the  pri- 
vate gain  of  your  soldiers  and  the  need  o£ 
making  them  content  had  not  deprived  you, 
especially  in  this  great  city,  of  the  noble 
commendation  of  having  treated  your  rebel- 
lious subjects,  in  the  hour  of  victory,  with 
more  consideration  than  their  own  protec- 
tors do  ;  and  that,  differently  from  a  transi- 
tory and  usurped  claim,  you  had  shown  that 
they  were  yours  by  a  fatherly  and  truly 
royal  protection."  The  letter  shows  admira- 
tion and  comprehension  of  the  king,  and  an 
intimacy  honorable  to  both.  There  was  some 
invitation  for  Montaigne  to  come  to  court, 
and  an  offer  of  money,  but  he  answered  : 
"  Sire,  your  Majesty  will  do  me,  if  you 
please,  the  favor  to  believe  that  I  will  never 
stint  my  purse  on  an  occasion  for  which  I 
would  not  spare  my  life.  I  have  never  re- 
ceived any  money  from  the  Hberality  of 
kings,  —  I  have  neither  asked  nor  deserved 
it ;  I  have  never  received  payment  for  the 
steps  I  have  taken  in  their  service,  of  which 
your  Majesty  in  part  has  knowledge.  What 
I  have  done  for  your  predecessors  I  will  do 
very  much  more  wiUingly  for  you.  I  am. 
Sire,  as  rich  as  I   desire."     But  ill  health 


130  MONTAIGNE 

would  not  permit  him  to  go,  even  if  he  had 
wished. 

In  the  mean  time  Montaigne  had  been  in 
Paris  (in  1588)  to  pubHsh  a  new  edition  of 
the  Essays.  There  he  formed  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Mademoiselle  de  Gournay,  a  young 
lady  of  twenty,  who  had  conceived  a  great 
enthusiasm  for  the  Essays.  Montaigne  called 
her  his  adopted  daughter.  After  his  death, 
helped  by  Madame  de  Montaigne,  she  de- 
voted herself  to  the  preparation  of  a  new 
edition  of  the  Essays,  with  all  the  last 
changes  and  additions  that  the  author  had 
made. 

Montaigne  spent  the  last  few  years  of  his 
life  on  his  seigniory.  He  lived  quietly,  his 
health  growing  worse,  till  he  died,  on  Sep- 
tember 13,  1592,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine.  It 
is  said  that  when  he  felt  his  death  near,  no 
longer  able  to  speak,  he  wrote  a  little  note 
asking  his  wife  to  summon  several  gentlemen 
of  the  neighborhood,  that  he  might  take 
leave  of  them.  When  they  had  come,  he 
had  mass  said  in  his  room ;  and  when  the 
priest  came  to  the  elevation  of  the  host,  he 
threw  himself  forward  as  best  he  could,  his 
hands  clasped,  and  so  died. 


MONTAIGNE  131 

VI 

We  are  wont  to  call  a  man  of  letters  great 
when  many  generations  of  men  can  go  to  his 
book,  read  what  he  says  on  the  subject  that 
concerns  them,  —  conduct,  religion,  love,  the 
significance  of  life,  —  and  find  that  he  has 
cast  some  light,  or  at  least  has  shifted  the 
problem.  Such  is  Montaigne.  There  were 
greater  men  living  in  his  time,  Shakespeare, 
Cervantes ;  but  life  plies  many  questions  to 
which  poetry  and  ideahsm  give  no  du'ect  an- 
swer. If  a  man  would  look  serenely  upon 
the  world,  and  learn  the  lesson  that  "  ripe- 
ness is  all,"  he  must  go  to  the  poet  and  to 
the  idealist,  but  he  must  go  to  the  skeptic, 
too.  Uncertainty  is  one  of  our  lessons,  and 
what  man  has  talked  so  wisely  and  so  per- 
suasively as  Montaigne  concerning  matters 
that  lie  at  the  threshold  of  the  great  ques- 
tions of  religion  and  philosophy,  which  must 
underhe  all  reasonable  life  ?  Hear  him,  for 
instance,  after  finding  fault  with  an  exces- 
sive creduhty,  blaming  its  opposite  :  "  But 
also,  on  the  other  part,  it  is  presumptuous 
and  foolish  to  go  about  disdaining  and  con- 
demning as  false  that  which  does  not  seem 


132  MONTAIGNE 

probable  to  us.  This  is  a  vice  common  to 
those  who  think  they  have  an  intelligence 
out  of  the  ordinary.  I  had  that  habit  once, 
and  if  I  heard  of  ghosts  or  prophecies  of 
future  events,  or  of  magic,  of  witchcraft,  or 
some  wonderful  story  which  I  could  not  en- 
dure, I  felt  compassion  for  the  poor  people 
abused  by  this  nonsense.  Now  I  find  that 
I  myself  was  at  least  as  much  to  be  pitied. 
Not  that  I  have  ever  had  any  experience  be- 
yond my  first  beliefs,  and  nothing  has  ever 
appealed  to  my  curiosity ;  but  reason  has 
taught  me  that  to  condemn  finally  a  thing 
as  false  and  impossible  is  to  claim  to  com- 
prehend the  boundaries  and  limits  of  the 
will  of  God  and  of  the  power  of  our  mother 
Nature,  and  that  there  is  no  more  remark- 
able folly  in  the  world  than  to  bring  them 
down  to  the  measurements  of  our  capacity 
and  intelligence.  If  we  give  the  names 
monsters  or  miracles,  there  where  our  rea- 
son cannot  go,  how  many  continually  come 
before  our  eyes  ?  Consider  in  what  a  mist, 
and  how  gropingly,  we  come  to  a  knowledge 
of  most  things  that  are  under  our  hands  ; 
we  shall  find  that  it  is  familiarity,  not  know- 
ledge, which  has  taken  the  strangeness  away, 


MONTAIGNE  133 

and  that,  if  those  things  were  presented  to 
us  afresh,  we  should  find  them  as  much  or 
more  unbehevable  than  any  others." 

Montaigne  commends  us  to  a  prudent  but 
brave  open-mindedness.  He  warns  us  against 
the  dogmas  of  affirmation  and  the  dogmas  of 
denial.  He  bids  us  pause  and  consider.  No- 
thing could  be  more  wrong  than  the  vulgar 
notion  that  Montaigne  has  something  in 
common  with  Mephistopheles,  the  spirit  that 
denies.  He  was  a  skeptic ;  but  a  single 
epithet  is  always  incorrect.  He  was  a  be- 
Hever,  too.  He  beHeved  in  education,  in  hu- 
manity, in  tolerance,  in  the  many-sidedness 
of  life,  in  the  infinite  power  of  God,  in  the 
nobleness  of  humanity.  Nothing  excites  his 
indignation  so  violently  as  the  "great  sub- 
tlety "  of  those  men  who  sneer  at  heroic 
deeds,  and  attribute  noble  performance  to 
mean  motives.  He  makes  no  pretense  of 
special  interest  in  conduct ;  but  conduct  is 
not  his  business,  —  he  is  concerned  with  the 
philosophy  which  underlies  conduct.  Some 
men  are  impatient  for  action ;  they  will  be- 
Heve  this,  that,  anything,  for  an  excuse  to  be 
up  and  doing.  Montaigne  is  not  a  man  of 
action ;  he  feels  uncomfortable  when  within 


134  MONTAIGNE 

hearing  of  the  whir  and  rush  of  life ;  he 
Hkes  to  retire  into  the  "  back  of  his  shop  " 
to  get  away  and  be  quiet.  He  was  for  con- 
templation and  meditation.  It  was  this 
shrinking  from  action  that  made  him  a  skep- 
tic. Action  is  the  affirmation  of  belief,  but 
also  its  begetter.  I  believe  because  I  act. 
The  heart  beats,  the  blood  circulates,  the 
breath  comes  and  goes,  the  impatient  muscles 
do  not  wait  for  the  tardy  reason  to  don  hat 
and  overcoat,  arms  twitch,  legs  start,  and  the 
man  is  plunged  into  the  hurly-burly  of  life. 
There  he  goes,  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of 
human  beings,  hurrying,  struggling,  squirm- 
ing, all  filled  to  surfeit  with  most  monstrous 
beliefs.  Montaigne's  heart  beats  more  slowly ; 
he  is  in  no  hurry  to  act ;  the  meaning  of 
life  will  not  yield  to  mere  importunity ;  let 
us  keep  cool.  "  If  any  difficulties  occur  in 
reading,  I  do  not  bite  my  nails  about  them, 
but,  after  an  attempt  or  two  to  explain  them, 
I  give  them  over.  Should  I  insist  upon 
them,  I  should  lose  both  myself  and  my 
time  ;  for  I  have  a  genius  that  is  extremely 
volatile,  and  what  I  do  not  discern  at  the 
first  attempt  becomes  the  more  obscure  to 
me  the  longer  I  pore  over  it.  .  .  .  Continua- 


MONTAIGNE  135 

tion  and  a  too  obstinate  contention  stupefy 
and  tire  my  judgment.  I  must  withdraw  it, 
and  leave  it,  to  make  new  discoveries,  just 
as,  in  order  to  judge  rightly  of  the  lustre  of 
scarlet,  we  are  ordered  to  pass  it  lightly  with 
the  eye,  and  to  run  it  over  at  several  sudden 
repeated  views." 

Montaigne  is  of  the  Latin  people,  men  of 
the  south,  children  of  the  market  place  and 
the  piazza.  He  sits  in  peacef  ulness,  watch- 
ing the  comedy  and  tragedy  of  the  world. 
He  lives  apart ;  for  him  life  is  a  stow,  a 
school  for  philosophy,  a  subject  for  essays. 
If  you  have  been  bred  in  the  Adirondacks 
or  on  the  slope  of  Monadnock,  up  betimes, 
to  tire  your  legs  all  the  long  day,  and  at 
evening  to  watch  the  setting  sun  and  listen 
for  the  first  call  of  the  owl,  you  will  not  like 
Montaigne.  There,  in  the  morning  of  life, 
the  blue  sky  overhead,  the  realities  of  life 
looking  so  strong  and  so  noble,  the  specula- 
tions of  a  skeptic  come  like  a  cloud  of  dust. 
Montaigne  is  not  for  the  young  man.  Youth 
has  convictions  ;  its  feelings  purport  absolute 
verity  ;  it  possesses  reality  :  why  go  a-fish- 
ing  for  dreams?  But  when  the  blood  runs 
cooler,  when  we  are  glad  to  be  safe  on  earth, 


136  MONTAIGNE 

when  of  a  winter's  evening  we  listen  to  the 
pleasant  shoot  of  the  bolt  that  shall  keep  us 
to  ourselves,  and  draw  up  to  the  fire,  then 
Montaigne  is  supreme.  He  is  so  agreeable, 
so  charming,  so  skillful  in  taking  up  one 
subject,  then  another,  so  well  practiced  in 
conversation,  so  perfect  a  host.  We  are 
translated  into  his  library.  He  wanders 
about  the  room,  taking  from  his  shelves  one 
book  after  another,  opening  them  at  random, 
reading  a  scrap,  and  then  talking  about  it. 
On  he  goes,  talking  wisely,  wittily,  kindly, 
while  the  flickering  firelight  plays  over  his 
sensitive,  intelligent  face,  and  the  Gascon 
moon  shines  in  patches  on  the  floor,  till  the 
world  we  are  used  to  dissolves  under  his 
talk,  and  its  constituent  parts  waver  and 
flicker  with  the  firelight.  Everything  aerifies 
into  dream-made  stuff,  out  of  which  our  fancy 
builds  a  new  world,  only  to  see  it  again  dis- 
solve and  fade  under  his  bewitching  talk. 

Montaigne  talks  of  himself.  But  his  self 
is  not  the  vulgar  self  of  the  gossip ;  it  is  the 
type  and  model  of  humanity.  Like  a  great 
artist,  he  makes  himself  both  individual  and 
type.  He  is  the  psychologist  studying  man. 
He  is  his  own  laboratory,  his  own  object  of 


MONTAIGNE  137 

examination.  When  we  try  to  discover  the 
movements  of  the  mind,  have  we  any  choice  ? 
Must  we  not  examine  ourselves  ?  He  does 
not  bring  us  to  himself  for  the  mere  exhilara- 
tion of  talking  about  himself.  His  subject 
is  man  ;  through  the  windows  of  man's  mind 
he  makes  us  gaze  at  the  universe,  forever 
reiterating  in  our  ears  that  man  is  a  prisoner 
in  the  four  walls  of  his  mind,  chafe  how  he 
will.  If  this  be  egotism,  it  is  egotism  with 
all  its  teeth  drawn. 

Skeptic,  philosopher,  abstracted  from  the 
world,  Montaigne  nevertheless  does  not  shirk 
when  the  choice  comes  between  speaking 
out  and  keeping  silent.  He  had  something 
sturdy  at  bottom.  We  cannot  repeat  too 
often  his  "  We  must  rend  the  mask  from 
things  as  well  as  from  men."  This  is  no 
easy  task.  Even  the  strength  of  the  young 
mountaineer  may  not  suffice.  Masks  famil- 
iar to  us  all  our  lives  become  very  dear  ;  let 
us  leave  them,  —  there  are  other  things  to 
do.  Is  there  not  something  ignoble  in  this 
use  of  our  courage,  to  maltreat  an  old,  ven- 
erable appearance  ?  Give  us  some  work  of 
poetry  and  romance ;  bid  us  scale  heaven. 
And  so  the  masks  of  things  remain  unre- 


138  MONTAIGNE 

moved.  There  is  in  Montaigne  always  the 
admiration  of  the  heroic.  "  All  other  know- 
ledge is  useless  to  him  who  does  not  know 
how  to  be  good.  .  .  .  The  measure  and  the 
worth  of  a  man  consist  in  his  heart  and  will ; 
in  them  is  the  home  of  his  honor.  .  .  .  True 
victory  Heth  in  the  fight,  not  in  coming  off 
safely ;  and  the  honor  of  courage  is  in  com- 
bat, not  in  success."  Of  the  three  philoso- 
phies which  he  studied,  the  Epicurean,  the 
Pyrrhonian,  the  Stoic,  his  heart  was  inclined 
to  the  last,  and  I  think  he  would  rather  have 
had  a  nod  of  approval  from  Cato  the  younger 
than  have  heard  Sainte-Beuve  salute  him  as 
the  wisest  of  Frenchmen. 


MACAULAY 


MACAULAY 


The  history  of  England  is  the  great  ro- 
mance of  the  modern  world.  The  story  of 
the  rise,  triumph,  decline  and  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  is  more  dramatic ;  it  would 
be  impossible  to  match  in  interest  the  narra- 
tive of  that  Roman  people  from  their  cra- 
dle on  the  Palatine  Hill  until  they  walked 
abroad  masters  of  the  world.  But  England 
is  now  living  in  the  height  of  her  pride  and 
power,  the  great  civilizing  force  of  this  cen- 
tury. Sprung  from  the  mingled  blood  of 
Celt,  Saxon,  Scandinavian,  and  Norman,  the 
EngHshman  has  made  his  island  home  a  gar- 
den of  poetry,  a  school  of  government  for 
the  nations,  the  factory  of  the  world  :  — 

"  This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world  ; 
This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea." 

The  story  of  England  outdoes  the  Waver- 
ley  Novels.  Its  panorama  extends  like  the 
visions  of  an  enchanter  :  the  mightiest  Julius 


142  MACAULAY 

lands  ;  legionaries  build  walls  and  camps,  and 
withdraw  ;  wild  men  struggle  with  wild  men  ; 
missionaries  teach  the  Pater  Noster  to  awk- 
ward lips  ;  petty  kingdoms  weld  together ; 
Saxons  strike  down  Celts ;  Normans  strike 
down  Saxons  ;  Crusaders  cross  the  seas  ;  Run- 
nymede  listens  to  a  great  charter ;  EngHsh 
judges  and  English  priests  struggle  against 
the  dominion  of  Roman  law  and  Roman  the- 
ology ;  Hotspurs  and  Warwicks  march  across 
the  stage  ;  sons  of  serfs  are  born  free  men , 
English  kings  lay  claims  to  the  lands  of 
France  ;  books  are  printed  ;  rebellions  break 
out  against  the  Roman  pontiffs ;  traders  and 
sailors  roam  abroad  ;  Bacon  reasons  ;  Shake- 
speare dramatizes ;  the  nation  shuffles  off  the 
coil  of  royal  tyranny ;  Royal  Societies  are 
founded  ;  weavers  weave ;  spinners  spin  ; 
bobbins  and  shuttles  load  ships ;  chapter 
succeeds  chapter,  till  the  great  volume  of 
the  nineteenth  century  is  reached. 

England  has  created  the  best  and  freest 
government  in  the  world  ;  England  has  made 
the  greatest  literature  ;  England  has  brought 
forth  Bacon,  Newton,  Darwin  ;  England  has 
wrought  the  only  system  of  law  that  can 
match  that  of  Rome ;  England  has  sent  forth 


MACAULAY  143 

"comme  un  vol  de  gerfauts,"  adventurers, 
colonizers,  civilizers  ;  England,  by  Drake  and 
Howard  of  Effingham,  has  annexed  the  Chan- 
nel to  her  coast ;  England  has  sent  westward 
Raleigh  and  Cabot,  Pilgrims  to  Massachu- 
setts, younger  sons  to  Virginia,  Wolfe  to 
Canada,  Clive  and  Warren  Hastings  to  In- 
dia, Dampier  and  Cook  to  Australia,  Gordon 
and  Kitchener  to  Egypt,  incorporating  vi 
et  armis  great  regions  of  the  earth  to  have 
and  to  hold  to  her  and  her  English  heirs 
forever. 

Amid  such  prodigal  wealth  of  harvest 
there  is  room  for  many  husbandmen.  Hol- 
inshed  and  Froissart  may  chronicle  legend 
and  foray  ;  Bacon  may  find  a  narrative  that 
shall  lead  to  political  preferment ;  Hakluyt 
may  gather  yarns  together  that  shall  stop 
the  question,  "  What  have  the  indolent  Eng- 
lish done  at  sea?  "  Clarendon  may  prove  the 
badness  of  a  fallen  cause  ;  Hume  may  un- 
cover plentiful  proofs  of  Tory  virtue  ;  Napier 
may  track  the  "  thin  red  line  of  heroes " 
threading  the  mountains  of  Spain.  Out  of 
the  hundred  facets  an  historian  may  select 
that  one  which  flashes  most  light  to  him. 
Froude  may  praise  the  red  hands  of  Eliza- 


144  MACAULAY 

bethan  marauders ;  Gardiner  may  follow  end- 
less links  of  cause  and  effect ;  Freeman  may 
find  explanations  for  his  own  historic  doubts ; 
Lingard  may  gratify  Roman  Catholics ;  Green 
may  avoid  personal  prejudices.  English  his- 
tory has  great  garners  laden  with  probabiH- 
ties,  theories,  interests,  and  facts,  protean 
enough  to  satisfy  the  most  wanton  historical 
desires. 

By  the  side  of  the  gay  and  splendid  colors 
of  Enghsh  history,  there  are  large  quiet 
spaces  of  sombre  hues,  dull  to  the  indolent 
eye.  While  heroes,  paladins,  and  champions 
have  been  caracoling  conspicuous ;  sad-vis- 
aged,  shrewd,  resolute  men  have  been  stead- 
ily working,  plodding,  planning,  construct- 
ing, —  commonly  behind  the  scenes,  but  not 
always.  Men  who  gradually,  step  by  step, 
sadly  and  surely  enlarging  precedent,  piecing 
and  patching,  wrought  the  common  law ;  who 
slowly  and  steadfastly  built  up  the  pious  and 
sombre  creeds  and  practices  of  the  Noncon- 
formist churches  of  England.  Such  men 
have  had  a  great  and  controlling  influence 
on  the  development  of  modern  England. 
They  have  been  the  burghers  as  opposed  to 
landowners  or  yeomen;  of  the  middle  class 


MACAULAY  145 

as  against  the  aristocracy  and  the  plebeians ; 
the  educated  in  distinction  from  the  learned 
or  the  ignorant.  They  have  been  the  dis- 
senters and  low  churchmen  ;  they  have  been 
the  party  of  advance,  the  advocates  of  petty 
changes,  the  practical  men  busy  with  daily 
needs,  careless  of  sentiments  and  theories, 
taking  care  of  the  pennies  of  life. 

They  are  the  men  of  double  entry,  magni- 
fying routine.  In  business  they  have  added 
mechanical  device  to  mechanical  device  ;  they 
have  put  wind,  water,  steam,  and  electricity 
into  subjection  ;  they  have  done  most  of  the 
reckoning  in  England,  and  their  brains  are 
hieroglyphed  with  I.  s.  d.  They  have  built 
up  cities,  adding  house  to  house,  block  to 
block,  factory  to  factory;  they  also  have 
made  a  man's  house  his  castle.  The  magic 
of  science  does  not  affect  them.  It  is  a  mon- 
ster, a  Caliban,  for  its  usefulness  they  would 
not  heed  it,  — 

"  But,  as 't  is, 
We  cannot  miss  him  :  he  does  make  our  fire, 
Fetch  in  our  wood,  and  serves  in  offices 
That  profit  us.     What  ho  f  slave  !  " 

In  literature  they  have  sustained  the  names 
that  have  been  forgotten ;  of  art  they  are  in- 


146  MACAULAY 

nocent;  in  religion  they  are  for  the  Old  Tes- 
tament ;  in  English  politics  they  are  Whigs 
and  Liberals.  They  made  the  revolution  of 
1688  ;  they  passed  the  Act  of  Settlement,  — 
a  formal  declaration  of  an  accepted  principle 
that  no  king  had  divine  rights  in  Great  Bri- 
tain ;  they  maintained  the  House  of  Hanover. 
This  cautious,  industrious,  peering-round- 
the-corner  class  is  not  attractive  to  everybody. 
We  miss  the  glitter  and  the  purple  of  osten- 
tatious heroism  ;  we  feel  the  absence  of  lux- 
ury, of  recklessness,  of  epigram,  of  sangfroid. 
Nevertheless,  that  class  constitutes  most  of 
the  machinery  of  the  civihzed  world,  calling 
itself  the  party  of  progress,  known  to  its 
enemies  as  Mr.  Gradgrind,  Mr.  Worldly-wise, 
Mr.  Stay-at-home.  This  difference  between 
the  manufacturer  and  the  country  squire,  the 
artisan  and  the  soldier,  the  practical  man 
and  the  idealist,  an  eye  fixed  on  the  present 
and  an  eye  roaming  over  the  past  or  future, 
between  Whig  and  Tory,  is  the  line  of  de- 
marcation between  two  kinds  of  minds  :  the 
Benjamin  Franklin  character,  inclined  to  wise 
saws,  wise  doubts,  wise  practices  and  experi- 
ments ;  and  the  Dr.  Johnson  temperament, 
bowing   to  authority,  custom,  the  ways    of 


MACAULAY  147 

grandfathers,  the  traditions  of  grandmo- 
thers, full  of  crotchets,  prejudices,  beliefs, 
and  idealism. 

If  one  looks  at  these  classes  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  reader  on  winter  evenings,  the 
attractions  of  Tory  history  (to  use  the  politi- 
cal epithet),  English  conquests,  English  em- 
pire, English  traditions,  English  poetry,  are 
beyond  comparison  more  entertaining  than 
histories  of  the  common  law,  of  Presbyte- 
rian synods,  of  factory  acts,  of  Manchesters 
and  Birmino-hams.  But  when  the  world  is 
quiet  and  the  politics  of  England  can  regu- 
late themselves  by  private  morality  and  by 
the  maxims  of  Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  the 
outwardly  uninteresting  class  is  sure  to  be  in 
power.  The  great  wealth  of  England,  the 
moral  tone  of  her  literature,  the  humane 
standard  among  her  common  clergy,  the  sav- 
ing ballast  in  her  ship  of  state,  are  all  tri- 
umphs of  the  Whigs. 

Two  generations  ago  the  chief  historians 
of  England,  Clarendon,  Hume,  Lingard,  had 
done  little  justice  to  the  achievements  of 
utility  and  progress ;  it  was  time  that  an  ad- 
vocate should  arise  to  show  the  real  value 
of  the  work  of  the  middle  classes.     Justice 


148  MACAULAY 

demanded  that  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion  a 
zealous  believer  should  plead  the  cause  of  the 
Whigs.  Up  rose  Thomas  Babington  Macau- 
lay,  and  first  in  the  "  Edinbui'gh  Review," 
and  afterwards  in  his  History,  eulogized 
their  political  achievements  with  amazing  elo- 
quence. All  that  he  has  written  on  the  sub- 
ject has  been  a  splendid  repetition  of  his  words 
on  his  election  as  member  for  Edinburgh : 
"I  look  with  pride  on  all  that  the  Whigs 
have  done  for  the  cause  of  human  freedom 
and  of  human  happiness." 

II 

As  a  political  party,  during  Macaulay's 
boyhood  and  early  youth,  the  Whigs  were  at 
a  low  point  of  their  power.  The  horrors  of 
the  Reign  of  Terror  in  Paris,  the  gigantic 
attempt  of  Napoleon  to  subdue  the  world,  the 
obvious  necessity  of  war,  the  glories  of  the 
Nile,  Trafalgar,  of  Torres  Vedras  and  Wa- 
terloo, had  kept  the  majority  of  Englishmen 
in  the  Tory  ranks.  But  after  Napoleon  had 
been  caged  in  St.  Helena ;  after  the  Holy 
Alliance  had  guaranteed  the  peace  of  Eu- 
rope ;  after  the  change  from  war  to  peace  had 
thrown  business  into  confusion,  the  minds 


1/  MACAULAY  149 

of  Englishmen  were  free  to  meditate  on  the 
defects  of  the  time.  The  law,  especially  in 
the  Court  of  Chancery,  dragged  itself  along 
in  loops  of  unjust  delay ;  the  criminal  law 
was  barbarously  severe  ;  slavery  still  prevailed 
in  England's  colonies  ;  the  slave  trade  had 
but  lately  been  suppressed  ;  Roman  CathoHcs 
were  disfranchised  ;  the  Church  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  ignorant  parsons  ;  the  House 
of  Commons  was  in  the  power  of  nobles  and 
great  landowners.  But  the  tide  was  turn- 
ing. The  Tories  were  losinof  their  bulwark 
of  French  fears ;  Lord  Eldon  and  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  were  growing  old  ;  while  to  the 
support  of  the  Whigs  came  the  great  force 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  Machinery 
was  developing  Leeds,  Manchester,  and  Bir- 
mingham ;  machinery  was  doubhng  their  pop- 
ulation and  influence  ;  machinery  was  mak- 
ing manufacturers  rich,  urging  them  to  power 
and  freedom  from  old  restraints.  Weaving 
and  spinning  were  forcing  the  landed  inter- 
ests into  matters  of  secondary  importance. 
The  factories  of  England  were  calling  to  Glas- 
gow, Liverpool,  and  London  to  cover  the  sea 
with  Enghsh  ships  ;  and  English  commerce 
answered   to    the  call.      Behind   machinery 


150  MACAULAY 

stood  the  great  genie  steam,  of  pure  Whig 
principles,  practical,  energetic,  heedless  of  the 
past,  eager  for  new  things. 

For  a  long  time  the  opposition  to  old  cus- 
toms, habits  of  mind,  ways  of  thought  and 
action  had  needed  a  mouthpiece.  Believers 
in  change,  advocates  of  novelty,  critics  of 
what  is  and  has  been,  stood  in  need  of  a 
standard-bearer,  especially  in  Scotland,  where 
the  rising  genius  of  Walter  Scott  was  pran- 
cing like  "  proud  Cumberland."  The  spirit 
of  revolt  was  ready  for  articulate  voice. 
About  the  time  when  Macaulay  was  born, 
Sydney  Smith,  Francis  Jeffrey,  Francis  Hor- 
ner, and  Henry  Brougham  met  in  their  "  gar- 
ret "  in  Edinburgh,  and  founded  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Review."  That  review  now  is  part  of 
old  political  and  literary  history.  The  lives 
of  its  founders  have  been  written,  their  essays 
have  been  collected,  and  the  modern  reader 
ignorant  of  foes  who  have  been  long  since 
killed  and  buried,  when  he  sees  these  doughty 
champions  belaboring  thin  air,  wonders  why 
the  founders  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  are 
still  remembered.  The  youngest  of  them 
and  the  most  remarkable  was  Brougham. 
He  contributed   many  articles  to   the  early 


MAC  AULA  Y  151 

numbers,  and  continued  to  write  for  it 
throughout  his  life  ;  he  wrote  in  all  as  many 
as  two  hundred  essays. 

Brougham  was  a  man  of  enormous  activ- 
ity, an  agitator,  attacking  with  voice  and  pen 
hundreds  of  abuses  with  perpetual  vigor  and 
audacity.  He  worked  with  Wilberforce  and 
Lord  Holland  against  slavery  and  the  slave 
trade.  He  assailed  the  Orders  in  Council, 
the  Income  Tax,  the  foes  of  Queen  Caroline, 
the  enemies  of  law  reform.  He  fought  for 
the  diffusion  of  education.  He  argued,  ha- 
rangued, and  debated  in  Parliament  with 
the  vigor  of  ten.  He  led  the  bar  on  the 
Northern  circuit.  He  thundered  against  Lord 
Eldon  day  and  night.  He  discoursed  be- 
fore reforming  societies.  He  lectured  to 
leagues  for  the  promotion  of  scientific  know- 
ledofe.  Brouo'ham  became  one  of  the  most 
famous  men  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
after  the  Whig  triumph,  when  Lord  Grey 
came  into  power  in  1830,  he  was  given  the 
Great  Seal.  Such  a  powerful  turbulent  spirit 
exerted  great  influence  on  the  Review.  He 
disliked  Macaulay,  —  out  of  jealousy,  as 
Macaulay  thought,  —  and  when  Jeffrey  re- 
signed   his    position   as   editor.    Brougham 


152  MACAULAY 

threw  his  weight  against  the  proposal  that 
Maeaulay  should  succeed  him. 

Sydney  Smith  was  the  oldest  of  the 
founders,  and  a  far  more  typical  Whig  than 
Brougham.  He  was  the  embodiment  of  the 
qualities  which  give  its  character  to  the  Eng- 
lish Church.  Better  than  any  history,  Syd- 
ney Smith  sets  forth  the  practical  morality, 
the  subordination  of  religion  to  the  business 
of  living,  the  intolerance  of  mysticism,  the 
high  esteem  of  common  sense,  which  distin- 
guishes the  English  Church.  Sydney  Smith 
was  a  good  man,  an  excellent  parson,  a 
shrewd  preacher.  He  looked  on  life  from 
the  standpoint  of  common  sense  ;  he  was  in- 
terested in  practical  results.  He  thought 
that  the  problems  of  government,  of  reli- 
gion, of  living,  were  all  to  be  solved  by  in- 
telligence and  patience.  He  brought  his  wit 
to  the  service  of  the  liberal  cause,  and  was 
perhaps  the  most  effective  contributor  to  the 
Review  before  Maeaulay. 

Francis  Horner  is  generally  forgotten.  He 
was  a  man  of  hard  integrity  and  of  studious 
mind,  with  a  leaning  to  metaphysics,  eco- 
nomics, and  other  studies  then  specially  cul- 
tivated in  Edinburgh.      Sydney  Smith  said 


MACAULAY  153 

that  he  had  the  Ten  Commandments  written 
on  his  face.  Horner  died  before  he  was 
forty,  cutting  short  a  career  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  was  assured  of  distinguished 
success. 

Francis  Jeffrey  was  the  controUing  influ- 
ence in  this  group  of  men.  He  guided  and 
governed.  He  selected  and  sifted  ;  he  kept 
on  good  terms  with  the  fiery  Brougham. 
He  looked  on  the  Review  as  a  factor  in  civi- 
lization, and,  it  seems,  hesitated  to  make  it 
a  purely  party  organ.  But  Walter  Scott  and 
Tory  friends  started  the  Quarterly  in  1809, 
and  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  thereupon  be- 
came identified  with  the  Whig  pohtical  party. 
Jeffrey  must  have  been  a  very  attractive 
man  ;  Sydney  Smith  was  very  fond  of  him  ; 
Brougham  remained  faithful  to  him ;  Scott 
speaks  affectionately  of  him.  He  was  most 
kind  to  Macaulay.  In  his  old  age  Macau- 
lay's  success  with  the  "  History  of  England  " 
delighted  him :  "  My  dear  Macaulay,  the 
mother  that  bore  you,  had  she  been  yet 
alive,  could  scarcely  have  felt  prouder  or 
happier  than  I  do  at  this  outburst  of  your 
graver  fame."  Jeffrey's  essays  have  be- 
come things  of  the  past.     The  cold  Words- 


154  MACAULAY 

worthian,  in  his  less  worthy  moods,  looks  up 
the  famous  sentences  of  blame  once  so  much 
applauded.  The  opinions  of  literary  men, 
unless  they  chance  to  catch  what  succeeding 
generations  hold  to  be  truth,  or  have  dinted 
their  personality  on  their  sentences,  pass  with 
the  harvests  of  last  year.  Macaulay  gives 
Jeffrey  most  generous  praise,  but  Macaulay 
spoke  from  a  grateful  heart. 

In  1825  Jeffrey,  not  aware  of  all  the  forces 
that  were  working  on  the  Whig  side,  was 
eagerly  seeking  young  men  of  talents,  when 
he  came  upon  a  man  of  twenty-four,  of  fluent 
speech,  of  prodigious  memory  and  informa- 
tion, and  untrammeled  by  a  single  doubt. 
Young  Macaulay  contributed  to  the  August 
number  his  essay  on  Milton. 

Ill 

The  Macaulays  were  Scotch.  An  anecdote 
of  Lord  Macaulay's  grandfather,  who  was  one 
of  the  ministers  at  Inverary  when  Dr.  John- 
son went  thither  on  his  trip  to  the  Hebrides, 
is  told  by  Boswell,  which  gives  an  intima- 
tion that  in  the  Macaulay  blood  there  was 
both  that  readiness  to  block  out  a  man's 
character  and  make  it  all  of  a  piece,  and 


MACAULAY  155 

that  lack  of  sensitive  imagination,  of  which 
we  find  strong  marks  in  the  "  History  of 
England."  "  When  Dr.  Johnson  spoke  of 
people  whose  principles  were  good,  but  whose 
practice  was  faulty,  Mr.  M'Aulay  said,  he  had 
no  notion  of  people  being  in  earnest  in  their 
good  professions  whose  practice  was  not  suit- 
able to  them.  The  Doctor  grew  warm,  and 
said,  '  Sir,  are  you  so  grossly  ignorant  of  hu- 
man nature,  as  not  to  know  that  a  man  may 
be  very  sincere  in  good  principles,  without 
having  good  practice  ? '  "  This  is  character- 
istic Tory  criticism  of  characteristic  Whig 
belief. 

This  minister's  son  Zachary  was  of  the 
Scotch  Puritan  type.  Early  bred  to  busi- 
ness he  went  at  sixteen  to  Jamaica,  where 
he  learned  to  hate  negro  slavery;  he  gave 
up  his  position  in  consequence,  went  back 
to  England  at  about  twenty-four  years  of 
age,  and  was  sent  out  to  Sierra  Leone  by  a 
company  formed  in  the  interest  of  liberated 
slaves.  There  he  remained  as  governor  of  the 
colony  till  1799,  when  he  returned  to  Eng- 
land and  married  a  Miss  Mills,  the  daughter 
of  a  Quaker  of  Bristol.  On  October  25, 1800, 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  was  born. 


1S6  MACAULAY 

One  of  Macaulay's  many  bits  of  good  for- 
tune has  been  his  biographer ;  Trevelyan  is 
unsurpassed  by  any  EngHshman  except  Bos- 
well.  In  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord 
Macaulay,"  the  precocious  boy,  the  briUiant 
young  man,  appears  in  a  holiday  dress  of 
delightful  anecdotes.  In  that  wonderful 
■youth  it  is  difficult  to  tell  what  effect  Macau- 
lay's  father  and  mother  had  upon  him.  His 
father  served  the  anti-slavery  cause,  in  com- 
pany of  Wilberforce  and  Thornton,  with  stern 
and  tireless  devotion.  He  appears  to  have 
looked  on  his  son  somewhat  as  a  means 
which  God  had  given  him  for  the  execution 
of  a  great  plan  ;  not  that  there  was  any  lack 
of  affection,  but  the  son  never  could  have 
had  the  pleasure  of  beholding  in  his  father 
a  purpose  to  secure  for  him  the  fullness  of 
life,  never  could  have  realised  except  in 
imagination  that  a  father  might  bestow  upon 
his  son  the  education  of  mere  prodigal  love. 
Macaulay's  mother  was  a  devout  woman, 
somewhat  given  to  that  pious  phraseology 
which  is  tolerable  only  in  privacy.  There 
is  a  picture  of  evangelical  Clapham  —  that 
part  of  London  where  the  Macaulays  lived  — 
in  "  The   Newcomes."     Colonel  Newcome's 


MACAULAY  167 

father  lived  there ;  his  brothers  Hobson  and 
Brian  were  bred  there.  But  Trevelyan  will 
not  grant  much  truth  to  this  picture. 

After  preparation  at  a  small  school  Macau- 
lay  went  into  residence  at  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  in  October,  1818.  Derwent  Cole- 
ridge, Praed,  and  a  certain  brilliant  Charles 
Austin  were  among  his  intimates.  Although 
already  a  great  reader,  Macaulay  did  not  live 
in  books  only;  he  took  keen  interest  in  poli- 
tics, wrote  prize  poems,  talked  early  and  late. 
He  had  no  liking  for  mathematics,  for  sci- 
ence, or  for  athletic  exercises.  He  seems  to 
have  been  at  that  time  very  much  what  he 
was  in  later  years ;  with  the  same  zeal,  the 
same  quick  spii-it,  and  with  those  prodigious 
powers  of  reading  and  of  remembering,  of 
•which  the  like  have  never  been  known.  In 
1822  he  won  the  prize  for  the  best  essay  on 
the  "Conduct  and  Character  of  William  III." 
Trevelyan  says  that  the  characters  of  James 
and  of  William,  the  Popish  Plot,  the  license 
of  the  Restoration,  "  are  drawn  on  the  same 
lines  and  painted  in  the  same  colors"  as  they 
are  in  his  History.  This  is  characteristic  of 
the  man.  Macaulay  lacked  the  advantage 
of  slowness  in  intellectual  development,  which 


158  MACAULAY 

enables  a  growing  mind  to  feed  upon  fitting 
food  in  the  advancing  stages  of  its  develop- 
ment. His  capacity  for  sympathy  seems  to 
have  been  of  a  certain  quality,  receptive 
only  within  definite  Hmits  ;  it  had  no  elasti- 
city to  admit  new  classes  of  interests.     His 

r~^ormous  fund  of  information  did  him  a 
certain  injury  by  coddling,  as  it  were,  the 
stunted  side  of  his  imagination.  It  assured 
him  that  his  judgment  had  not  been  taken 
without  a  complete  survey  of  all  reasonably 
available  means  of  knowledge.  It  lent  all 
the  weight  of  precocious  erudition  to  opin- 
ions formed  too  easily,  and  shut  him  off 
from  the  elementary  truth  that  not  informa- 
tion, but  sensitiveness  to  many  sides  of  hu- 
manity, helps  a  man  to  just  judgments.  His 
views  were  clear,  definite,  susceptible  of  sup- 
port from  many  arguments,  and  honest  as 
the  day ;  but  he  never  had  the  education  of 

J  a  great  private  personal  emotion.  He  never 
was  in  love ;  he  never  comprehended  the 
meaning  of  religion.  Untouched  by  these 
two  great  causes  of  human  growth,  Macaulay 
left  Cambridge  a  very  efficient  machine,  self- 
possessed,  ready,  eloquent,  of  high  principle, 
careless  of  vulgar  success,  with  certain  pecu- 


MACAULAY  159 

liar  powers  of  mind  which  in  their  order 
have  not  been  surpassed  if  they  have  ever 
been  equalled. 

Macaulay  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1826 ; 
he  went  on  the  Northern  circuit,  where  he 
met  Brougham,  but  it  seems  that  he  had  lit- 
tle or  no  practice.  His  inclination  lay  in 
other  directions  ;  he  displayed  his  oratory 
before  various  societies,  and  his  literary  tal- 
ents in  "  Knight's  Quarterly  Magazine."  In 
1825  his  essay  on  Milton  had  been  published 
in  the  ''  Edinburgh  Review,"  and  he  was  at 
once  treated  by  notable  men  of  twice  his  age 
with  distinguished  consideration.  Perhaps 
it  was  a  misfortune  for  a  brilliant  young 
man  of  Scotch  ancestry,  bred  at  home  in  an 
evangelical,  anti-slavery  air,  trained  to  com- 
plete self-possession  at  Cambridge,  to  find 
himself  of  instant  consequence  to  the  great 
Whig  organ.  He  was  thereby  subjected  to 
influences  which  strenofthened  his  tenden- 
cies  of  mind  and  cut  him  off  from  all  sym- 
pathy with  opposite  opinions ;  so  that  the 
very  virtues  of  conservatism,  of  unreasoning 
emotions,  stood  over  against  him  as  so  many 
enemies  to  be  battled  with. 

Petted  and  praised  by  the  men  whom  he 


160  MACAULAY 

had  learned  to  look  upon  as  the  salt  of  Eng- 
land, sought  after  by  that  Review  for  which 
Sydney  Smith,  the  great  wit,  Jeffrey,  the 
great  critic,  Brougham,  the  great  reformer, 
were  eager  to  write,  applauded  by  the  whole 
reading  world  of  London,  Macaulay  had  no 
chance  to  repair  the  defects  of  his  inherit- 
ance and  of  his  education.  The  essay  on 
Milton  is  not  one  of  Macaulay's  best,  —  he 
was  but  twenty-four  years  old,  —  yet  it  bears 
the  well-known  characteristics  of  Macaulay's 
style  :  clearness  with  no  shadow  of  doubt ; 
•  the  assurance  that  only  a  little  patience  and 
common  sense  are  needed,  and  all  the  con- 
fusion that  time,  custom,  and  prejudice  have 
thrown  around  the  important  matters  of  life 
will  uncurl  and  drop  off,  leaving  one  face  to 
face  with  certamty  ;  the  brilHant  mastery  of 
rhetoric  which  satisfies  the  immediate  appe- 
tite of  the  mind ;  the  powerful  arguments 
of  the  orator  which  upon  one  hearing  are 
not  to  be  resisted  ;  the  positiveness  of  com- 
mon sense,  the  definiteness  of  complete  com- 
prehension, the  art  of  prologue  and  exor- 
dium, of  paragraph  and  sentence,  of  commas 
and  semicolons.  All  his  life  Macaulay  was 
convinced  that  truth  is  as  clear  as  day,  and 


MACAULAY  161 

that  if  a  man  has  knowledge  of  his  subject 
and  is  neither  a  bigot  nor  a  fool,  he  need 
only  write  clearly  and  all  people  past  rudi- 
mentary intelligence  and  shell-form  educarj 
tion  will  receive  light  and  be  converted.  He 
felt  the  burden  of  Whig  duty  upon  his  shoul- 
ders ;  he  must  show  the  right  and  describe 
the  wrong,  portray  justice  and  reveal  injus- 
tice, exhibit  the  beneficial  and  expose  the 
hurtful,  put  the  light  of  good  literature  on  a 
hill  and  snuff  the  candle  of  the  bad.  Ma- 
caulay  had  the  highest  aims  and  the  noblest 
aspirations  that  are  compatible  with  complete 
mental  subjection  to  the  practical,  to  the  use- 
ful, to  the  mechanical  parts  of  life.  He  is 
intolerant  of  wrong,  because  wrong  is  his 
adversary,  and  his  adversary  is  wrong.  He 
hates  injustice ;  has  not  injustice  been  ranged 
with  Stuarts,  pretenders,  slavery,  Popery,  and 
all  the  evils  he  is  resolute  to  combat?  He 
abhors  cruelty ;  it  is  inextricably  bound  up 
with  bigotry,  fanatical  loyalty,  intolerant 
privileges.  He  is  a  man  of  party  ;  he  enjoys 
friends,  he  delights  in  enemies.  He  rejoices 
in  his  own  strength,  and  hits  out  from  the 
shoulder. 

He  who  looks  back  over  two  generations 


162  MACAULAY 

at  the  fierce  battles  of  the  past  finds  it  easy 
to  see  virtue  and  wrong  on  each  side,  dis- 
covers the  vanity  of  the  victory  and  the  hol- 
lowness  of  the  defeat,  and  in  his  armchair, 
turning  over  hooks,  smiles  at  the  fiery  zeal  and 
convictions  of  men  long  buried.  None  the 
less  is  it  important  for  him  that  the  battle 
has  been  fought,  that  the  side  on  which  there 
was  a  slight  preponderance  of  right  should 
have  conquered.  We  may  wonder  at  the 
emotions  of  those  who  fought  the  political 
fight  over  the  Reform  Act,  with  somewhat  of 
the  same  compassion  that  we  read  of  Atha- 
nasian  and  Arian,  but  we  need  to  remember 
that  not  the  indolent  skepticisms  of  the  past, 
but  its  vigorous  energies  and  convictions, 
have  removed  stones  and  uprooted  thorns 
from  our  path. 

IV 

The  great  struggle  between  the  old  po- 
litical institutions  of  England  and  the  new 
political  needs  of  the  middle  classes  was  first 
fought  over  the  question  of  Roman  Catholic 
Emancipation.  The  reformers  won.  The 
Test  Acts  were  old  statutes  enacted  in  the 
time  of  Charles  II.,  and  required  all  officers, 


MACAULAY  163 

civil  and  military,  under  the  government  to 
take  the  communion  according  to  the  rites 
o£  the  Anglican  Church.  Thereafter  those 
Acts  had  been  in  substance  amended  by 
allowins:  dissenters  to  be  relieved  from  the 
penalties  of  the  original  Acts,  but  they  had 
remained  in  full  force  against  the  Catholics. 
These  Acts  were  repealed  in  1828.  In  1829 
the  Catholic  Emancipation  Act,  which  al- 
lowed Roman  Catholics  to  sit  in  Parliament, 
was  passed.  Both  parties  then  prepared  for 
the  great  issue  of  parliamentary  reform. 

At  that  time  the  House  of  Commons  did 
not  represent  the  nation  but  the  aristocracy. 
Great  landowners  sent  their  sons  and  depend- 
ents to  sit  for  pocket  boroughs.  Members 
sat  for  constituencies  which  had  been  estab- 
lished hundreds  of  years  and  more ;  in  the 
mean  time  some  old  towns  had  dwindled  to 
villages.  Old  Sarum  had  no  inhabitants, 
yet  it  returned  two  members.  Old  villages 
had  grown  to  great  cities,  and  had  no  repre- 
sentation. Manchester,  Leeds,  Birmingham, 
Sheffield,  returned  no  members  ;  Edinburgh, 
Glasgow,  London  itself,  were  most  imper- 
fectly represented.  The  House  represented 
neither  population  nor  property.     The  pros- 


164  MACAULAY 

perous  middle  classes  throughout  the  whole 
island  determined  that  this  injustice  should 
cease,  that  they  should  share  with  the  aris- 
tocracy. The  Whigs  were  on  the  lookout  for 
young  men  of  talents.  In  the  early  part  of 
1830,  through  the  influence  of  Lord  Lans- 
downe,  Macaulay  was  returned  to  Parlia- 
ment for  a  petty  borough.  In  July  George 
IV.  died,  and  Parliament  was  dissolved.  The 
new  elections  were  held  on  the  issue  of  par- 
liamentary reform  ;  the  Whigs  were  success- 
ful. Shortly  after  Parliament  assembled  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  forced  to  resign, 
and  Earl  Grey  formed  a  Whig  ministry. 
Brougham  was  made  lord  chancellor.  On 
the  first  day  of  March,  1831,  Lord  John 
Russell,  leader  in  the  House,  introduced  the 
Reform  Bill,  which  proposed  to  disfranchise 
some  threescore  boroughs,  and  to  give  repre- 
sentation to  unrepresented  towns.  The  next 
day  Macaulay,  who  had  addressed  the  House 
but  twice  in  the  preceding  Parliament,  arose 
and  delivered  his  first  great  speech.  He 
said  that  the  bill  was  a  practical  measure, 
that  it  did  not  propose  to  embody  a  symmet- 
rical theory  of  representation  ;  he  would  not 
urge  universal  suffrage  for  fear  lest  in  times 


MACAULAY  165 

of  discontent  the  laborlnj^  classes  should  be 
wrought  upon  by  passion  to  do  hurt  to  the 
state  ;  but  this  bill  would  bring  great  strength 
of  property  and  intelligence  to  the  support 
of  order.  He  argued  that  to  say  the  present 
system  was  ancient,  and  in  old  times  had 
been  praised  by  Englishmen  and  foreigners, 
was  no  defense  of  it ;  in  those  times  there 
had  been  a  representative  House  of  Commons, 
but  great  changes  in  population  and  property 
had  takeii  place ;  that  the  Tory  argument 
that  Manchester  was  virtually  represented  was 
a  concession  to  reform,  for  if  virtual  repre- 
sentation was  good,  in  what  respect  was  it 
good  wherein  direct  representation  would  not 
be  better  ;  that,  to  the  fear  that  the  middle 
classes  were  desirous  of  aboHshing  the  mon- 
archy and  the  aristocracy,  he  would  answer 
that  a  form  of  government  in  which  the 
middle  classes  had  no  confidence  could  not 
conduce  to  the  happiness  of  the  people  ;  that, 
as  to  the  claim  that  it  would  be  unjust  to 
deprive  boroughs  of  vested  rights,  history 
showed  that  the  right  to  return  members 
had  never  been  regarded  as  property ;  that 
change  was  better  than  discontent.  Did  the 
House  wish  to  wait  for  popular  rage  ?   "  Now, 


166  MACAULAY  '? 

therefore,  while  everything  at  home  and 
abroad  forebodes  ruin  to  those  who  persist 
in  a  hopeless  struggle  against  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  now,  while  the  crash  of  the  proud- 
est throne  of  the  Continent  is  still  resound- 
ing in  our  ears,  now,  while  the  roof  of  a 
British  palace  affords  an  ignominious  shelter 
to  the  exiled  heir  of  forty  kings,  now,  while 
we  see  on  every  side  ancient  institutions  sub- 
verted, and  great  societies  dissolved,  now, 
while  the  heart  of  England  is  still  sound, 
now,  while  old  feelings  and  old  associations 
retain  a  power  and  a  charm  which  may  too 
soon  pass  away,  now,  in  this  your  accepted 
time,  now,  in  this  your  day  of  salvation, 
take  counsel,  not  of  prejudice,  not  of  party 
spirit,  not  of  the  ignominious  pride  of  a  fatal 
consistency,  but  of  history,  of  reason,  of  the 
ages  which  are  past,  of  the  signs  of  this  most 
portentous  time.  Renew  the  youth  of  the 
state.  Save  property  divided  against  itself. 
Save  the  multitude  endangered  by  its  own 
ungovernable  passions.  Save  the  aristocracy, 
endangered  by  its  own  unpopular  power. 
Save  the  greatest,  and  fairest,  and  most 
highly  civilized  community  that  ever  existed, 
from  calamities  which  may  in  a  few  days 


MACAULAY  167 

sweep  away  all  the  rich  heritage  of  so  many 
ages  of  wisdom  and  glory.  The  danger  is 
terrible.  The  time  is  short."  The  House 
was  wild  with  excitement.  Everybody  com- 
pared him  to  Burke,  Fox,  Canning.  Peel 
said  that  parts  of  the  speech  were  as  beau- 
tiful as  anything  he  had  ever  heard  or  read. 
Macaulay,  the  orator,  had  rivaled  Macaulay 
of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review."  Society  ran 
after  him.  Rogers  gave  him  breakfast  par- 
ties ;  Lady  Holland  made  a  pet  of  him. 
Gladstone  says  that  Macaulay  had  achieved 
"  immense  distinction."  "  For  a  century  and 
more,  perhaps  no  man  in  this  country,  with 
the  exception  of  Mr.  Pitt  and  Lord  Byron, 
had  attained  at  thirty-two  the  fame  of  Ma- 
caulay. His  parliamentary  success  and  his 
literary  eminence  were  each  of  them  enough, 
as  they  stood  at  this  date,  to  intoxicate  any 
brain  and  heart  of  a  meaner  order.  But  to 
these  was  added  in  his  case  an  amount  and 
quahty  of  social  attentions  such  as  invaria- 
bly partake  of  adulation  and  idolatry,  and 
as  perhaps  the  high  circles  of  London  never 
before  or  since  have  lavished  on  a  man  whose 
claims  lay  only  in  himself,  and  not  in  his 
descent,  his  rank,  or  his  possessions."   Never- 


168  MACAULAY 

theless,  Macaulay  devoted  himself  to  Parlia- 
ment. In  the  autumn  the  House  of  Lords 
threw  out  the  bill.  The  country  was  very 
much  excited.  The  Commons  passed  the  bill 
again,  the  Lords  indicated  that  their  minds 
were  unchanged.  Earl  Grey  resigned.  The 
Duke  of  Wellington  tried  to  form  a  cabinet, 
but  could  not,  and  advised  the  king  to  recall 
the  Whig  ministry.  The  threat  of  creating 
new  peers  sufficient  to  turn  the  Lords  to  a 
Whig  body  was  successful.  The  bill  passed, 
and  on  the  7th  of  June,  1832,  became  law. 

The  victory  was  much  to  the  honor  of 
England.  By  the  force  of  public  opinion 
expressed  in  the  forms  of  law  the  fabric  of 
the  British  constitution  had  been  greatly 
changed.  The  chief  of  the  coordinate 
branches  of  the  government  had  been  taken 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  aristocracy  and  given 
to  the  middle  classes.  EngUshmen  had 
effected  this  revolution  by  peaceful  methods. 
No  blood  was  shed,  no  soldiers  paraded  the 
streets,  neither  legal  rights  nor  ordinary  busi- 
ness was  suspended ;  while  on  the  Continent 
in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  Belgium,  and  Po- 
land, reformers  and  conservatives  had  been 
shooting  one  another  in  the  highways. 


MACAULAY  169 

These  important  events  left  their  mark  on 
Macaulay  ;  the  natural  bent  of  his  shrewd 
practical  mind  was  increased  and  strength- 
ened. He  had  deepened  his  hkings  and 
broadened  his  dislikes.  ^le  saw  all  Eno^lish 
history  explained  and  interpreted  by  this  par- 
liamentary struggle./'  When  his  mind  again 
went  to  the  subject  of  his  prize  essay,  he 
felt  that  the  country  had  been  through  a 
revolution  Hke  that  of  1688  ;  and  that  his 
personal  experience  enabled  him  to  under- 
stand James  II.  and  William  III.  as  no  man 
who  had  not  been  in  the  middle  of  that 
struffo^le  could  do.  It  is  no  wonder  that  a 
young  man  of  strong  feelings,  who  had  borne 
an  honorable  part  in  the  contest,  and  had 
won  a  great  reputation,  should  have  become 
more  and  more  convinced  that  the  dividing 
line  between  Whig  and  Tory  was  the  very 
line  which  separated  right  from  wrong;  and 
that  when  he  looked  back  over  the  history 
of  England,  he  should  have  judged  the  past 
by  the  present. 

V 

Macaulay's  collected  essays  fill  several  vol- 
umes.    All  but  a  few  were  published  in  the 


170  MACAULAY 

"Edinburgh  Review"  from  1825  to  1845. 
Of  his  first  essay,  that  on  Milton,  he  himself 
says  it  "  contains  scarcely  a  paragraph  such 
as  my  matured  judgment  approves,  and  is 
overloaded  with  gaudy  and  ungraceful  orna- 
ment." Howbeit,  a  gay  livery  becomes  the 
opinions  of  youth.  The  essay  on  Milton  is 
boyish,  not  with  the  ordinary  immaturity  of 
four  and  twenty,  but  with  the  boyishness  of 
Macaulay's  own  schoolboy  of  twelve  ;  he  who 
at  fifteen  in  the  Seminary  of  Douai  learned 
enough  theology  to  outweigh  the  Jesuit 
counselors  of  Charles  II.  and  James  IL,  and 
whose  private  library  would  be  incomplete 
without  a  full  edition  of  Burnet's  pamphlets. 
Nevertheless,  of  all  blame  laid  on  Charles  I., 
most  people  best  remember  the  famous  sum- 
ming up :  "  We  charge  him  with  having 
broken  his  coronation  oath  ;  and  we  are  told 
that  he  kept  his  marriage  vow."  The  essay 
is  boyish,  but  fifty  years  after  it  was  pub- 
lished, Mr.  Gladstone,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
five,  deemed  it  worthy  of  criticism. 

In  the  essays  many  little  mistakes  of  fact 
have  been  discovered  by  careful  seekers. 
Froude  charges  Macaulay  with  error  upon 
error :  in  that   Macaulay  makes   accusation 


MACAULAY  171 

that  Alice  Ferrers  was  mistress  of  Edward 
III.,  that  Strafford  debauched  the  daughter 
of  Sir  Richard  Bolton,  that  Henry  VIII.  was 
the  murderer  of  his  wives.  Froude's  pleas 
of  not  guilty  savor  a  little  of  the  technical 
knowledgfe  of  an  advocate  at  the  criminal  bar 
retained  for  the  defense.  Macaulay's  state- 
ments may  technically  not  be  proved ;  as 
jurymen  we  may  say  not  guilty,  but  as  indi- 
viduals we  are  convinced  of  the  justice  of  his 
charge.  Froude,  champion  of  the  Protestant 
cause,  accuses  Macaulay  of  wrong  to  the  Eng- 
lish Reformation  and  to  Cranmer ;  and  of 
espousal  of  the  Catholic  cause  in  1829 ;  but 
betrays  his  own  intemperate  partiality  by 
adding  :  "  The  Ethiopian,  it  was  said,  had 
changed  his  skin."  Froude  also  finds  fault 
that  Macaulay  was  too  severe  in  his  essay 
on  Robert  Montgomery's  bad  poems.  What 
place  has  generosity  in  matters  of  art  ? 

Froude  says  Macaulay  "was  the  creation 
and  representative  of  his  own  age  ;  what  his 
own  age  said  and  felt,  whether  it  was  wise 
or  foolish,  Macaulay  said  and  felt."  In  this  / 
judgment  Mr.  John  Morley  and  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  concur.  It  may  be  that  to  be  the 
representative  of  the  age  is  no  very  serious 


» 


172  MACAULAY 

f aiilt.  Shakespeare  bears  witness  to  the  high 
renaissance  of  England ;  Dante  embodies  the 
Middle  Ages ;  Cervantes  represents  the  chiv- 
alry of  Spain  ;  Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  flower 
of  American  democracy.  Macaulay,  it  is 
true,  never  tires  telHng  of  the  growth  of  pop- 
ulation and  the  increase  of  wealth;  and  many 
men  whose  minds,  Uke  his,  are,  as  Froude 
says,  "  of  an  ordinary  kind,"  think  exactly 
as  he  does.  But  their  creed  is  the  creed  of 
England.  Is  it  surely  wrong  ?  Perhaps  we 
should  rejoice  at  the  increase  of  wisdom  and 
not  at  multiplying  numbers  ;  but  what  of  an 
hundred  thousand  mothers  who  rejoice  over 
an  hundred  thousand  children  ?  Whose  new- 
born son  shall  be  handed  to  Herod  as  the 
price  of  wisdom  ?  And  what  becomes  of  the 
sneer  at  commercial  prosperity  when  we  think 
of  food  for  the  hungry,  shelter  for  the  ragged, 
schools  for  the  ignorant,  homes  for  the  aged  ? 
It  is  not  the  beliefs,  but  the  skepticisms  of 
the  utilitarian  which  are  to  be  blamed. 

It  may  be  asked,  is  Fronde's  fame  the  tri- 
umph of  accuracy  ?  is  Mr.  Morley  wholly  free 
from  the  popular  positivist  creed  of  his  gener- 
ation ?  has  he  in  "  Voltaire  "  and  "  Rousseau  " 
betrayed  sympathy  with  an  alien  faith  ?     Is 


J 


MACAULAY  173 

Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  in  danger  lest  lie  be  flung 
from  the  saddle  of  common  sense  by  the 
caracoling  of  his  rhetoric?  They  all  com-  I 
plain  that  Macaulay  lacks  sensitiveness.  The 
complaint  is  just ;  but  are  they  in  a  position 
to  claim  that  their  own  title  to  distinction  is 
"  d'avoir  quelquefois  pleure  "  ? 

Macaulay's  essays  taken  one  by  one  can 
be  splintered  and  chipped,  but  bound  to- 
gether they  furnish  part  of  the  strength  of 
English  literature.  Their  subjects  have  great 
range  of  historical  interest ;  vast  knowledge 
of  literature  has  been  crammed  into  their 
compass  ;  mastery  of  rhetoric  colors  page, 
paragraph,  and  sentence.  Picture  follows 
picture  till  the  reader  fancies  that  he  is 
whirled  by  spring  floods  from  Shalott  cas- 
tle down  to  many  towered  Camelot.  Like 
a  genie  to  the  lord  of  his  lamp,  Macaulay 
fetches  the  wealth  of  all  the  literature  of  the 
civilized  world  and  lays  it  before  his  readers. 
He  goes  through  a  volume  for  an  anecdote  ; 
he  ransacks  a  library  for  an  impression. 

There  is  one  danger  into  which  Macaulay's 
critics  often  fall.  In  the  picture  of  a  man, 
in  the  narration  of  an  episode,  they  find  an 
error  of  fact,  and  conclude  that  the  picture 


/J? 


174  MACAULAY 

is  unjust,  that  the  episode  is  false.  But 
Macaulay  is  so  steeped  in  information  that, 
although  he  may  be  wrong  as  to  a  particular 
fact,  he  is  justified  in  his  conclusion.  In  the 
case  of  Henry  VIII.  there  may  be  legal  error 
and  moral  truth  in  the  epithet  murderer. 
)  ^The  essays  are  the  work  of  a  rhetorician, 
the  greatest,  perhaps,  in  English  hterature. 
One  defect  in  that  literature,  as  compared  with 
Latin  literatures,  has  been  a  lack  of  rhetoric. 
The  great  masters  of  English  prose,  Milton 
and  Burke,  appeal  to  the  imagination.  Their 
language  is  sensuous  and  adorned,  but  they 
address  themselves  to  the  intellect ;  they 
charge  their  speech  with  thought ;  they  are 
careless  that  they  lay  burdens  upon  their  read- 
ers ;  they  are  indifferent  that  they  outstride 
the  crowd.  The  rhetorician  —  a  Cicero,  a 
Bossuet  —  tries  to  spare  his  readers ;  he 
wishes  to  be  always  thronged  by  the  multi- 
tude. So  it  is  with  Macaulay.  He  says 
nothing  that  everybody  cannot  comprehend 
and  at  once.  He  exerts  all  his  powers  to 
give  his  readers  as  little  to  do  as  possible  ; 
he  drains  his  memory  to  find  decorations  to 
catch  their  eye  and  fix  their  attention.  He 
presents  everything  in  brilliant  images.     He 


MACAULAY  175 

writes  to  the  eye  and  the  ear.  He  has  in 
mind  the  ordinary  Briton  ;  he  does  not  write 
for  a  sect  nor  for  a  band  of  disciples.  He 
is  always  the  orator  talking  to  men  who  are 
going  to  vote  at  the  close  of  his  speech.  He 
never  stops  with  a  suggestion ;  he  never 
pauses  with  a  hint ;  he  is  never  tentative, 
never  is  rendered  august  by  the  clouds  of  . 
doubt.  'J 

Macaulay  was  a  born  orator  fit  to  speak  to 
the  multitude  at  the  cross-roads ;  not  to  the  , 
individual  in  his  closet :  he  was  also  a  man 
of  letters,  a  man  of  the  Hbrary  ;  no  living 
being  ever  had  such  a  mass  of  information 
in  his  head  at  one  time.  These  two  quahties 
explain  his  devotion  to  literature,  his  admira- 
tion of  the  Greeks,  his  love  of  the  world's 
great  poets,  and  the  seemingly  inconsistent 
fact  that  he  never  exceeded  the  stature  of  a 
rhetorician.  He  had  a  skilled,  delicate,  and 
educated  taste  in  literature  ;  but  his  ear  to 
listen  and  his  voice  to  speak  were  far  apart. 
His  ear  is  the  cunning  ear  of  Jacob  hstening 
to  the  sweet  voice  of  Rachel,  but  his  voice 
is  the  voice  of  Esau  calling  afar  to  his  shep- 
herds. 

Macaulay's  poetry  is  himself  set  to  metre 


176  MACAULAY 

and  rhyme.  It  has  the  swing,  the  vigor,  the 
balanced  sentences  of  his  prose.  It  has  the 
awakening  power  of  brass  instruments  play- 
ing the  reveiUe.  It  used  to  be  a  subject 
of  debate  whether  Macaulay's  poems  were 
poetry  or  no ;  and  there  are  men  to  whom 
those  poems  have  not  and  never  can  have 
the  significance  of  the  poetry  native  to  them. 
But  they  are  the  poetry  of  a  strong,  healthy, 
typical  Englishman.  It  may  be  doubted  if 
there  be  any  other  English  poetry  which 
bears  in  itself  half  so  much  evidence  that  it 
was  written  by  an  EngHshman.  The  metre 
is  good,  the  rhyme  is  good,  the  narrative  is 
excellent.  Everybody  knows  how  the  strenu- 
ous rush  of  Horatius  dints  itself  on  the  mem- 
ory ;  everybody  can  name  the  cities  which 
sent  their  tale  of  men  to  Lars  Porsena. 

Macaulay  in  his  verse  as  in  his  prose  pre- 
sents one  definite  picture  after  another.  Each 
character  comes  on  the  stage  m  exact  por- 
traiture, whether  it  be  Horatius,  Herminius, 
Hahfax,  Sunderland,  or  Somers.  There  they 
are  in  the  blaze  of  high  noon  ;  there  is  no 
twilight  for  them;  never  do  their  outlines 
blend  in  the  shades  of  doubt.  Macaulay  saw 
the  world  as  one  vast  picture-book.     This 


MACAULAY  177 

is  the  reason  why  his  essays  stand  on  the 
Australian's  shelf  next  to  the  Bible  and  to 
Shakespeare.  There  is  nothing  in  English 
literature  comparable  to  them  ;  there  is  no- 
thing of  the  kind  in  foreign  literatures. 
Each  essay  is  a  combination  of  history  and 
literature,  of  anecdote  and  learning,  of  inci- 
dent and  portraiture,  of  advocacy  and  party 
spirit,  such  as  are  commonly  found  separate 
and  distinct  in  the  essays  of  a  dozen  differ- 
ent men.  There  is  somewhat  of  the  con- 
structive element  of  imagination  here.  As 
the  mechanical  mind  brings  together  the 
odds  and  ends  of  its  recollection,  the  re- 
mainder baggage  of  its  memory,  and  works 
and  fashions  them  into  an  invention,  so 
Macaulay  from  his  vast  stores  unites  and 
combines  scattered  materials  and  creates  an 
imaginative  picture.  There  is  nothing  to  be 
found  in  his  work  which  the  world  did  not 
possess  before ;  but  most  of  the  world  was 
not  aware  of  its  possessions  until  Macaulay 
gathered  them  together. 

VI 

Next   in  importance  to  Macaulay's  expe- 
rience in  Parliament,  as    bearing  upon  his 


178  MACAULAY 

historical  education,  are  bis  four  years  of 
service  in  India.  One  of  the  early  acts  of 
the  Reformed  Parliament  was  to  revise  the 
charter  of  the  East  India  Company.  Among 
great  changes  it  was  enacted  that  one  mem- 
ber of  the  Supreme  Council,  which,  with 
the  governor-general,  was  to  govern  India, 
should  not  be  chosen  from  the  service  of  the 
company.  Macaulay  was  appointed  to  fill 
that  position,  and  in  1834,  taking  his  sister 
Hannah,  subsequently  Lady  Trevelyan,  he 
sailed  for  India.  To  the  general  reader  the 
most  interesting  event  connected  with  Ma- 
caulay's  service  in  India  is  a  list  of  the  books 
he  read  on  the  voyages  thither  and  back. 
On  the  voyage  out,  he  read  the  Iliad,  the 
Odyssey,  the  ^neid,  Horace,  Csesar,  Bacon, 
Dante,  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  Tasso,  Cervantes, 
"The  Decline  and  Fall  of  Rome,"  Mill's 
"  India,"  seventy  volumes  of  Voltaire,  Sis- 
mondi's  "  History  of  France,"  and  the  seven 
folios  of  the  "  Biographica  Britannica."  The 
real  matters  of  consequence  are  Macaulay's 
study  of  the  details  of  Indian  administra- 
tion, his  support  of  complete  freedom  of  the 
press,  his  successful  advocacy  that  all  the 
higher   branches   of   knowledge    should   be 


MACAULAY  179 

taught  in  the  English  tongue ;  and,  more 
than  all,  his  labors  upon  the  Criminal  Code. 
Of  his  draft  of  this  Code  after  spending 
great  and  continuous  labor  upon  it,  Macau- 
lay  says :  *^  I  am  not  ashamed  to  acknow- 
ledge that  there  are  several  chapters  in  the 
Code  on  which  I  have  been  employed  for 
months ;  of  which  I  have  changed  the  whole 
plan  ten  or  twelve  times ;  w^hich  contain  not 
a  single  word  as  it  originally  stood ;  and 
with  which  I  am  very  far  indeed  from  being 
satisfied."  After  Macaulay's  return  to  Eng- 
land, in  1838,  his  draft  was  revised  by  a  suc- 
cessor, and  was  finally  enacted  into  law  after 
the  Mutiny. 

In  those  four  years  Macaulay  took  a  large 
share  in  the  administration  of  an  empire  ; 
while  tending  its  needs  he  observed  the 
operations  of  social  forces  which  when  past 
constitute  the  history  of  a  country.  In 
his  leisure  time  he  read  books  as  no  man 
ever  read  before.  When  he  returned  to 
England  he  had  had  the  worst  and  the  best 
training  for  writing  history  that  ever  an 
Englishman  had  :  in  that  he  had  been  a 
partisan  legislator  at  a  time  when  the  en- 
actment of  a  British  statute  was  the  formal 


/ 


180  MACAULAY 

acknowledgment  of  a  social  revolution ;  and 
in  that  he  had  been  administrator  of  the  em- 
pire of  India  in  a  time  of  transition.  These 
experiences  gave  him  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  machinery  of  government ;  but  some- 
times in  matters  of  history  the  hand  of  little 
employment  hath  the  daintier  sense.  When 
we  consider  that  in  addition  to  this  education 
he  had  a  marvelous  power  of  expression,  a 
prodigious  memory,  and  an  interest  in  Eng- 
lish history  greater  than  in  anything  else, 
it  might  have  been  guessed  that  Macaulay 
would  write  the  most  brilliant  history  of 
England  that  had  yet  been  written. 

On  July  20,  1838,  Macaulay,  writing  to 
Napier,  editor  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review," 
of  his  proposed  History,  said  that  according 
to  his  plan  it  should  extend  from  the  Revo- 
lution to  the  death  of  George  IV. ;  "  the 
history  would  then  be  an  entire  view  of  all 
the  transactions  which  took  place  between 
the  Revolution  which  brought  the  Crown 
into  harmony  with  the  ParHament  and  the 
Revolution  which  brought  the  ParHament 
into  harmony  with  the  nation."  On  Decem- 
ber 18  his  diary  reads :  "  I  am  more  and 
more   in    love  with    my  subject.      I   really 


MACAULAY  181 

think  that  posterity  will  not  willingly  let  my 
book  die."  Nevertheless,  it  was  long  before 
he  was  able  to  give  himself  wholly  to  his 
task.  In  the  summer  of  that  year  he  was 
asked  to  stand  for  the  city  of  Edinburgh. 
On  his  election  he  accepted  the  secretary- 
ship at  war  and  a  seat  in  Lord  Melbourne's 
cabinet.  The  Whigs,  however,  were  losing 
their  hold  upon  the  people,  and  in  the  gen- 
eral election  in  1841,  although  Macaulay  was 
returned  again  from  Edinburgh,  the  Tories 
carried  everything  south  of  the  Trent,  and 
Macaulay  lost  his  seat  in  the  cabinet.  He 
was  glad  of  greater  leisure,  and  went  busily 
to  work  at  essays,  at  his  "  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome,"  and  at  his  History. 

Once  again  he  sat  in  the  cabinet.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  beaten  in  June,  1846,  and 
Lord  John  Russell  gave  Macaulay  a  seat  as 
paymaster-general  of  the  army.  But  his 
term  of  office  was  again  short,  for  he  was 
defeated  at  the  polls  in  the  next  general 
election  in  1847. 

Free  from  parliamentary  duties  Macaulay 
worked  at  his  History  with  unimpeded  indus- 
try; he  devoured  books,  pamphlets,  manu- 
scripts, papers,  letters;    he  traveled   hither 


182  MACAULAY 

and  thither,  to  this  place  and  to  that ;  he 
followed  lines  of  march,  he  traced  marks  of 
old  walls  and  bastions,  he  ferreted  out  tradi- 
tions, he  listened  to  old  gossip.  "  The  notes 
made  during  his  fortnight's  tour  through 
the  scenes  of  the  Irish  war  are  equal  in 
bulk  to  a  first-class  article  in  the  Edinburo;h 
or  Quarterly  reviews."  The  first  two  vol- 
umes of  the  History  appeared  in  November, 
1848.  Success  was  instantaneous.  Macau- 
lay  had  said  :  "  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  unless 
I  produce  something  which  shall  for  a  few 
days  supersede  the  last  fashionable  novel  on 
the  tables  of  young  ladies."  He  must  have 
been  satisfied.  Edition  has  succeeded  edi- 
tion, paid  for  and  pirated,  in  England,  in 
America,  in  a  dozen  foreign  countries,  vol- 
umes upon  volumes,  until  it  may  be  doubted 
if  any  book,  except  the  Bible,  has  had  so 
many  copies  printed.  In  December,  1855, 
the  third  and  fourth  volumes  were  pub- 
lished ;  and  Macaulay's  fame  as  one  of  the 
great  English  writers  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  firmly  fixed  in  English  literature. 
"  All  the  world  wondered ;  "  most  of  the 
world  applauded.  Yet  on  the  day  when  his 
first  volumes  came  out  he  writes  in  his  diary  : 


MACAULAY  183 

"  I  read  my  book,  and  Thucydides,  which,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  I  found  much  better  than 
mine."  In  comparison  with  any  other  rivals 
he  felt  content;  and  as  he  was  free  from 
petty  vanity,  his  opinion  is  entitled  to  re- 
spect. In  heaped  masses  of  detail,  in  bril- 
liant narrative,  in  clearness  of  meaning,  in 
striking  portraiture,  in  the  portrayal  of  the 
chief  characteristics  of  the  English  character, 
Macaulay  has  no  English  rival. 

VII 

It  would  be  easy  to  find  fault  with  any 
story  of  past  events,  even  if  it  were  written 
by  Minos  and  Rhadamanthus  together.  The 
historian  must  tell  in  a  chapter  the  events 
of  years  ;  he  must  compress  into  a  page  the 
character  of  a  hero ;  he  must  cram  into  a 
paragraph  an  episode  which  brought  life  or 
death  to  a  thousand  men.  With  innumera- 
ble facts  to  choose  from,  he  is  bound  to  make 
choice.  By  the  law  of  individuahty  he  will 
not  choose  just  the  facts  that  Tom,  Dick,  or 
Harry  sets  store  by.  That  Stubbs,  Freeman, 
Hallam,  Gardiner,  do  not  have  as  many  fault- 
finders as  Macaulay  is  due  in  a  measure, 
at  least,  to  the  fact  that  they  have  not  one 


184  MACAULAY 

fiftieth  part  of  his  readers ;  and  the  readers 
whom  they  have  belong  to  certain  general 
classes.  Macaulay's  readers  are  of  every 
kind  and  description  :  of  crabbed  age  and 
fiery  youth  ;  grave  seniors,  reckless  ne'er-do- 
wells  ;  obstinate  men,  reasonable  men  ;  chol- 
eric men,  meek  men  ;  pinched  men,  pampered 
men ;  misers,  prodigals  ;  saints,  sinners ;  cyn- 
ics, believers ;  the  melancholy  man,  the  curi- 
ous man,  the  mean  man,  the  envious  man,  — 
all  kinds  from  Brabantio  to  Autolycus,  from 
Major  Pendennis  to  Mr.  Winkle ;  and  every 
one  a  critic,  caring  not  who  knows  his  mind. 
There  are,  however,  several  classes  of  men 
to  whom  Macaulay's  History  wears  an  essen- 
tially false  aspect.  These  are,  first,  the  men 
of  Tory  cast  of  thought,  of  whom  we  have 
spoken :  men  who  have  been  taught  from 
babyhood  to  look  upon  the  cause  represented 
by  Tories  in  the  history  of  politics  as  the 
only  true  and  just  cause ;  men  who  sit  at 
ease  in  the  status  quo  and  wonder  why  other 
men  squirm  in  their  seats ;  men  whose  minds 
clinging  to  the  past,  — 

"  Sois-moi  fidfele,  o  pauvre  habit  que  j'aime  ! " 

look   askance    at   the   future   and    possible 


MACAULAY  185 

change  ;  who  face  to-morrow  in  the  posture 
of  self-defense.  They  judge  by  local  custom 
and  immemorial  usage,  "My  father  used  to 
say  that  his  grandfather  said,"  and  cross 
themselves.  Naturally  they  look  upon  the 
liberal  type  with  an  unjust  eye. 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  men  of  re- 
ligious nature :  men  who  give  as  little  ear 
to  daily  happenings  as  they  do  to  unknown 
tongues  ;  who  care  not  for  the  reputed  mean- 
ing of  things ;  who  read  Plato,  Spinoza, 
Wordsworth ;  who  roam  about  seeking  some- 
thing that  shall  satisfy  their  sense  of  bigness ; 
who  plunge  into  learning,  bigotry,  or  sacri- 
fice, as  headlong  as  a  boy  dives  into  a  sum- 
mer pool.  These  men  cannot  take  the  Whig 
interpretation  of  life.  Macaulay's  facts  are 
to  them  incoherent,  meaningless ;  he  might 
as  well  hold  out  to  them  a  handful  of 
sand.  What  are  those  gay  faceted  Httle  facts 
to  them?  What  care  they  for  machinery, 
parliamentary  reform,  progress,  Manchester 
prints  ?  They  delight  not  in  gaudy  day ; 
they  are  servants  to  darkness,  — 

"  Hail  thou  most  sacred  venerable  thing." 

Then  there  is  a  third  class  of  men  suscepti- 


186  MACA  JLAY 

ble  to  delicate  and  indefinite  sensations.  They 
demand  chiaroscuro,  twilight,  "  shadows  and 
sunny  ghmmerings."  They  are  of  a  sensi- 
tive, skeptical  quahty.  They  hold  that  the 
meaning  of  one  solitary  fact  cannot  be  ex- 
hausted by  the  most  brilhant  description ; 
they  must  needs  go  back  to  it  continually, 
like  Claude  Monet  to  his  haystack  ;  every 
time  they  find  it  different.  They  live  in 
mystery  and  uncertainty.  The  past  is  to 
them  as  doubtful  as  the  future.  For  them 
some  infinite  spirit  hovers  over  life,  contin- 
ually endowing  it  with  its  own  attribute  of 
infinite  change,  forever  wreathing  this  misty 
matter  into  new  shapes ;  making  all  things 
uncommon,  wonderful,  and  strange.  For 
them  the  highest  of  man's  nature  is  in  his 
shudder  of  awe.  For  them  all  life  has  fitful 
elements  of  poetry,  music,  and  art.  They 
are  sensitive  to  little  things,  moving  about 
like  children  in  a  world  unrealized.  They 
are  sympathetic  with  seeming  mutually  exclu- 
sive things.  Such  men  seek  poetry  every- 
where, and  find  it ;  they  contemplate  hfe  as 
an  aggregate  of  possibilities,  not  of  facts.  At 
common  happenings,  like  opium-eaters,  they 
fall  into  strange  dreams.     They  live  on  sym- 


MACAULAY  187 

bols.  To  such  an  aspect  of  life  as  these  men 
behold,  Macaulay  was  utterly  strange.  Of  a 
chapel  in  Marseilles  he  says  :  "  The  mass  was 
nearly  over.  I  stayed  to  the  end,  wondering 
that  so  many  reasonable  beings  could  come 
together  to  see  a  man  bow,  drink,  bow  again, 
wipe  a  cup,  wrap  up  a  napkin,  spread  his 
arms,  and  gesticulate  with  his  hands ;  and  to 
hear  a  low  muttering  which  they  could  not 
understand,  interrupted  by  the  occasional 
jingling  of  a  bell." 

Macaulay  seems  to  have  felt  his  estrange- 
ment in  a  childlike  way  whenever  he  had  to 
do  with  those  matters  of  beauty  which  pecu- 
liarly call  out  the  distinctive  character  of 
this  class  of  men.  "I  have  written  several 
things  on  historical,  political,  and  moral 
questions,  of  which,  on  the  fullest  recon- 
sideration, I  am  not  ashamed,  and  by  which 
I  should  be  wilHng  to  be  estimated ;  but  I 
have  never  written  a  page  of  criticism  on 
poetry,  or  the  fine  arts,  which  I  would  not 
burn  if  I  had  the  power."  And  yet  Macau- 
lay had  strong  feelings  for  two  great  ideal- 
ists of  the  world,  Dante  and  Cervantes.  In 
Florence  his  rooms  looked  out  on  a  court 
adorned  with  orange  trees  and  marble  stat- 


188  MACAULAY 

ues.  His  diary  reads :  "  I  never  look  at  the 
statues  without  thinking  of  poor  Mignon :  — 

"  *  Und  Marmorbilder  stehn  und  sehn  mich  an  : 
Was  hat  man  dir,  du  armes  Kind,  gethan  ?  * 

I  know  no  two  Hnes  in  the  world  which  I 
would  sooner  have  written  than  those."  In 
another  part  of  his  diary  he  writes :  "  I 
walked  far  into  Herefordshire,  and  read, 
while  walking,  the  last  five  books  of  the 
Iliad,  with  deep  interest  and  many  tears.  I 
was  afraid  to  be  seen  crying  by  the  parties 
of  walkers  that  met  me  as  I  came  back ;  cry- 
ing for  Achilles  cutting  off  his  hair,  crying 
for  Priam  rolling  on  the  ground  in  the  court- 
yard of  his  house ;  mere  imaginary  beings, 
creatures  of  an  old  ballad-maker  who  died 
near  three  thousand  years  ago."  To  such 
sentiments  few  have  been  as  susceptible  as 
Macaulay,  but  beyond  that  into  the  realm  of 
spiritual  sensitiveness,  into  the  borderland 
where  the  senses  cease  to  tyrannize,  he  could 
not  go. 

Then  there  are  men  of  individual  idiosyn- 
crasies :  one  does  not  like  the  popularity  of 
Macaulay's  History,  he  prefers  that  which  is 
caviare  to  the  general,  a  privacy  of  glorious 
light  must  be  his ;  a  second  is  troubled  by 


MACAULAY  189 

antitheses  and  rhetoric ;  a  third,  hazy  with 
old  saws,  thinks  that  in  so  much  ghtter  there 
can  be  no  gold ;  a  fourth  wants  humor,  he 
misses  the  "  tender  blossoming  "  of  Charles 
Lamb  here  and  there ;  others  are  Quakers 
zealous  for  William  Penn ;  doctors  of  philo- 
sophy tender  of  Bacon's  good  name ;  grand- 
sons of  Scotch  cavaliers  warm  for  Dundee  ; 
militiamen  valiant  for  Marlborough ;  then 
there  are  Mr.  Churchill  Babington,  Sir  Fran- 
cis Palgrave,  and  Gladstone  himself,  defend- 
ers of  the  Anglican  Church,  and,  not  least, 
Macaulay's  fellow  historians.  How  can  a 
just  man  please  men  of  such  varying  hu- 
mors ?  How  shall  a  man  write  history  for  a 
fellow  scholar  ?  How  hold  the  balances  be- 
tween yesterday  and  to-morrow  ?  How  can 
a  man  be  neither  for  the  party  of  change 
nor  for  the  party  that  says  "  tarry  awhile." 
"  C'est  une  plaisante  imagination  de  conce- 
voir  un  esprit  balance  justement  entre  deux 
pareilles  envyes." 

Macaulay's  History  suits  the  majority  of 
Englishmen,  by  its  virile  directness,  its  hon- 
est clearness,  its  bold  definiteness.  Macau- 
lay  is  never  afraid  ;  he  never  shirks,  he  never 
dissembles  or  cloaks ;  he  never  says  "  per- 


L 


190  MACAULAY 

f  haps  "  or  "maybe,"  nor  "the  facts  are  ob- 
scure," nor  "  authorities  differ."  He  makes 
the  reader  know  just  what  effect  the  evidence 
has  produced  on  his  mind.  To  be  sure, 
there  is  danger  in  that  brilHant  rhetoric. 
The  glow  of  declamation  disdains  the  sickly 
hue  of  circumspection.  The  reader  of  the 
year  3000,  for  whom  Macaulay  winds  his 
horn,  cannot  hear  the  shuffling  syllables  of 
shambhng  uncertainties.  Men  go  to  the 
window  when  a  fire  engine  gallops  through 
the  street;  a  gentler  summons  might  not 
fetch  them.  There  is  something  of  martial 
music  about  Macaulay's  prose.  There  is  that 
in  it  which  excites  a  man.  It  belongs  to  a 
great  advocate,  not  to  blindfolded  Justice 
holding  her  cautious  scales  and  dohng  out 
"  ifs,"  "  huts,"  "  howevers,"  as  she  balances 
probabilities  with  all  the  diffidence  of  Doubt. 
But  what  is  truth?  Shall  Pilate  tell  of  his 
administration  in  Judaea  ?  If  he  do,  will  it 
be  as  definitive  as  the  Koran  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Caliph  Omar?  Will  Pilate  leave  the 
Evangelists  superfluous  ? 


MACAULAY  191 

VIII 

Macaulay  was  essentially,  and  in  his  strong- 
est characteristics,  an  Englishman.  His  mind 
and  heart  were  cast  in  English  moulds.  His 
great  love  and  unbounded  admiration  of  Eng- 
land sprung  from  his  inner  being.  His 
morahty,  his  honesty,  his  hate  of  sham,  his 
carelessness  of  metaphysics,  his  frank  speech, 
his  insular  understanding,  his  positiveness, 
are  profoundly  EngHsh.  And  there  is  in 
him  something  of  that  tenderness  —  to  which 
in  public  he  could  give  no  adequate  expres- 
sion —  which  gives  its  grace  to  that  most 
honorable  epithet,  an  English  gentleman. 
The  real  English  gentleman  shows  his  qual- 
ity in  his  English  home.  Trevelyan  has  done 
as  much  for  admiration  of  Macaulay,  as  ora- 
tory, essays,  poetry,  and  history  have,  by  giv- 
ing us  Macaulay's  letters,  and  by  telling  us 
of  Macaulay  at  home. 

It  would  be  a  far  cry  to  another  man  who 
has  poured  forth  so  much  prodigal  affec- 
tion upon  his  sisters  and  their  children.  A 
Raleigh,  a  Bayard,  do  their  famous  acts  of 
courtesy  to  sovereigns  in  presence  of  a  court ; 
Macaulay  did  his  acts  of  chivalry  in  secret. 


192  MACAULAY 

With  patience,  pain,  and  tender  solicitude, 
he  spent  his  splendid  gifts  for  the  pleasure 
of  simple  women,  and  of  boys  and  girls. 
In  his  youth  he  was  the  dehght  of  his  sis- 
ters; in  his  manhood  he  was  their  pride, 
their  joy,  and  their  benefactor.  In  all  his 
brilHant  story,  his  letters  to  his  sister  Han- 
nah, his  little  acts  of  kindness,  his  relations 
to  his  nephews  and  nieces,  are  the  most  in- 
teresting passages. 

In  the  midst  of  his  triumph  after  his  great 
speech  on  the  Reform  Bill,  he  writes  from 
London  :  "  My  dear  Sister,  —  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  delighted  I  am  to  find  that  my  let- 
ters amuse  you.  Send  me  some  gossip,  my 
love.  Tell  me  how  you  go  on  with  German. 
What  novel  have  you  commenced  ?  or  rather, 
how  many  dozen  have  you  finished?  Re- 
commend me  one."  While  he  was  in  India 
he  wrote,  on  the  death  of  his  youngest  sis- 
ter, "  What  she  was  to  me  no  words  can  ex- 
press. I  will  not  say  that  she  was  dearer  to 
me  than  anything  in  the  world,  for  my  sister 
who  was  with  me  was  equally  dear  ;  but  she 
was  as  dear  to  me  as  one  human  being  can 
be  to  another."  In  a  late  diary  he  writes  : 
"  Margaret,  alas  !  alas  !     And  yet  she  might 


MACAULAY  193 

have  changed  to  me.  But  no ;  that  could 
never  have  been.  To  think  that  she  has 
been  near  twenty-two  years  dead  ;  and  I  am 
crying  for  her  as  if  it  were  yesterday." 

He  was  a  great  playmate  with  Lady  Tre- 
velyan's  little  girls.  He  romped  mth  them  ; 
made  poems  for  them,  wrote  them  doggerel 
verses  and  jolly  letters.  "  Michaelmas  will, 
I  hope,  find  us  all  at  Clapham  over  a  noble 
goose.  Do  you  remember  the  beautiful 
Puseyite  hymn  on  Michaelmas  day  ?  It  is  a 
great  favorite  with  all  Tractarians.  You  and 
AHce  should  learn  it.     It  begins :  — 

'  Though  Quakers  scowl,  though  Baptists  howl, 
Though  Plymouth  Brethren  rage. 
We  Churchmen  gay  will  wallow  to-day 
In  apple-sauce,  onions,  and  sage. 

'  Ply  knife  and  fork,  and  draw  the  cork, 
And  have  the  bottle  handy  ; 
For  each  slice  of  goose  will  introduce 
A  thimbleful  of  brandy.' 

Is  it  not  good  ?  I  wonder  who  the  author 
can  be.  Not  Newman,  I  think.  It  is  above 
him.  Perhaps  it  is  Bishop  Wilberforce." 
From  his  home  at  Holly  Lodge  at  Kensing- 
ton he  writes  to  his  youngest  niece  :  "  I  have 
had  no  friends  near  me  but  my  books  and 


194  MACAULAY 

my  flowers,  and  no  enemies  but  those  exe- 
crable dandelions.  I  thought  that  I  was  rid 
of  the  villains  ;  but  the  day  before  yesterday, 
when  I  got  up  and  looked  out  of  my  win- 
dow, I  could  see  five  or  six  of  their  great, 
impudent,  flaring,  yellow  faces  turned  up  at 
me.  *  Only  you  wait  till  I  come  down,'  I 
said.  Is  it  Christian-like  to  hate  a  dandelion 
so  savagely?"  He  writes  in  his  diary  at 
Florence  that  he  saw  in  the  cloister  at  Santa 
Croce  "  a  monument  to  a  little  baby,  *  II  piu 
bel  bambino  che  mai  fosse  ; '  not  a  very  wise 
inscription  for  parents  to  put  up,  but  it 
brought  tears  into  my  eyes.  I  thought  of 
the  little  thing  (a  baby  niece)  who  lies  in  the 
cemetery  at  Calcutta." 

The  end  of  his  life  was  full  of  honors  ; 
the  city  of  Edinburgh  returned  him  to  Parlia- 
ment unsolicited,  eager  to  repair  the  wrong 
she  had  done  in  rejecting  him  ;  Lord  Pal- 
merston's  government  made  him  a  peer.  In 
1858  Motley  writes :  "  It  is  always  delightful 
to  meet  Macaulay,  and  to  see  the  reverence 
with  which  he  is  regarded  by  everybody." 
He  died  on  December  28, 1859.  On  Macau- 
lay's  tombstone  in  Westminster  Abbey  are  the 
words  :  — 


MACAULAY  195 

"His  body  lies  buried  in  peace, 
But  his  name  liveth  forever  more." 

And  since  Trevelyan's  book  not  his  name 
only,  but  the  manner  of  man  that  he  was. 
Of  the  very  best  type  of  Englishman,  of  the 
very  straitest  sect  of  Whigs  in  all  except  his 
brilHancy,  there,  in  his  biography  he  stands, 
in  his  courage,  his  convictions,  his  honesty, 
his  nobility,  his  tenderness.  Others  may  de- 
nounce shams  and  preach  against  affectation  ; 
Macaulay's  whole  life  was  one  eulogy  upon 
plain  speech,  one  continued  freedom  from 
make-believe.  He  never  was  a  pretender. 
In  India,  in  the  midst  of  awful  beliefs,  of 
strange  ceremonies,  of  notions  that  lie  out- 
side our  own  humanity,  where  intensity  of 
life  is  not  admired,  where  force  is  incuri- 
ously regarded,  where  fame  and  honor  are 
not  the  lessons  of  children,  where  chastity  is 
not  the  pride  of  woman  nor  possessions  the 
distinction  of  man,  where  sensuous  flowers 
exhale  perfumes  that  would  wither  up  "  wee 
modest  "  English  flowers,  Macaulay  made  no 
pretense  of  appreciation,  but  worked  at  a 
Criminal  Code,  and  read  European  classics  as 
if  he  were  in  Shropshire. 

In  Italy  he  is  ready  to  burst  into  tears 


196  MACAULAY 

when  he  has  crossed  the  portal  of  St.  Peter's ; 
but  for  him  "  nobody  can  think  Saint  Mark's 
beautiful."  He  is  shocked  and  disgusted  by 
"  the  monstrous  absurdity  of  bringing  doges, 
archangels,  cardinals,  apostles,  persons  of  the 
Trinity,  and  members  of  the  Council  of  Ten 
into  one  composition." 

In  England  all  that  Newman,  Carlyle,  Rus- 
kin  stood  for,  passed  by  him  as  unheeded  as 
a  "  threshold  brook." 

Macaulay's  fame  as  a  man  of  letters  seems 
as  secure  as  that  of  any  Enghshman  of  this 
century.  Editions  of  the  Essays  and  History 
still  come  on.  In  Germany  there  are  numer- 
ous translations.  In  France  Taine  has  said  : 
"  The  great  noveHsts  penetrate  the  soul  of 
their  characters,  assume  their  feehngs,  ideas, 
language.  Such  was  Balzac.  .  .  .  With  a 
different  talent  Macaulay  has  the  same  power. 
An  incomparable  advocate,  he  pleads  an  in- 
finite number  of  causes ;  and  he  is  master  of 
each  cause,  as  fully  as  his  cHent.  Though 
English,  he  had  the  spirit  of  harmony."  In 
Italy  Professor  Villari  cites  his  opinion  upon 
Macchiavelli,  delivered  when  he  was  twenty- 
six,  as  of  the  greatest  authority.  In  the 
United  States  his  books  have  been  pirated, 


MACAULAY  197 

and  his  style  imitated.  The  generation  o£ 
the  year  2000  no  doubt  will  read  him.  As 
to  them  of  3000,  who  cares  ?  Many  men 
greater  than  he  are  likely  to  be  born,  before 
another  of  such  peculiar  gifts  who  shall 
embody  so  brilliantly  the  best  English  char- 
acteristics. 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 


The  French  have  had  hospitable  reception 
from  us  of  late  years ;  their  books  have  been 
read  with  diligence,  their  novels  have  strewn 
ladies'  tables,  their  ideas  have  inspired  our 
men  of  letters.  "  Englished,"  "  done  into 
EngHsh,"  translated,  converted,  transfused 
into  English,  French  literature  furnishes 
forth  our  young  ladies  with  conversation  and 
our  young  gentlemen  with  cosmopolitanism, 
until  the  crushed  worm  of  national  preju- 
dice begins  to  squirm  and  turn.  Flaubert 
the  high  aspiring,  Maupassant  the  cunning 
craftsman,  Bourget  the  puppet-shifter,  Zola 
the  zealot,  have  had  their  innings ;  their  side 
is  out ;  the  fiery  bowling  of  Mr.  Kipling  has 
taken  their  last  wicket,  and  those  of  us  who 
have  been  born  and  bred  in  prejudice  and 
provincialism  may  return  to  our  English- 
American  ways  with  a  fair  measure  of  jaun- 
tiness.     We  are  no  longer  ashamed  to  lose 


202     ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

interest  when  we  hear  of  an  *'  inevitable " 
catastrophe  or  of  an  "impeccable"  style;  we 
yawn  openly  over  "  bitterly  modern  spiritual 
complexities."  Let  us  have  done  with  raw 
admiration  of  foreigners;  let  us  no  more 
heed  Ibsen  and  Zola, 

"  Or  what  the  Norse  intends,  or  what  the  French." 

Let  us  speak  out  our  prejudices ;  let  us  un- 
cover our  honest  thoughts  and  our  real  affec- 
tions. Let  us  openly  like  what  nature  has 
commanded  us  to  like,  and  not  what  we 
should  were  we  colossi  spanning  the  chasm 
between  nations. 

Cosmopolitanism  spreads  out  its  syllables 
as  if  it  were  the  royal  city  of  humanity,  but 
if,  whenever  its  praises  are  sung,  the  context 
be  regarded,  the  term  is  found  to  be  only  a 
polysyllabic  equivalent  for  Paris  and  things 
Parisian ;  it  means  preference  of  French 
ideas  and  ways  to  English.  We  are  not 
cosmopolitan  ;  we  learned  our  French  history 
from  Shakespeare,  Marryat,  and  Punch,  and 
from  a  like  vantage-ground  of  literary  sim- 
plicity we  survey  the  courses  of  English  and 
French  literatures,  and  with  the  definiteness 
of  the  unskeptical  we  believe  that  in  novel 


ENGLISH   AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE     203 

and  story,  in  drama  and  epic,  in  sermon  and 
essay,  in  ballad  and  song,  the  English  have 
overmatched  the  French. 

The  heart  of  all  literature  is  poetry.  The 
vitality  of  play,  story,  sermon,  essay,  of 
whatever  there  is  best  in  prose,  is  the  poetic 
essence  in  it.  English  prose  is  better  than 
French  prose,  because  of  the  poetry  in  it. 
We  do  not  mean  prose  as  a  vehicle  for  use- 
ful information,  but  prose  put  to  use  in 
literature.  English  prose  gets  emotional  ca- 
pacity from  English  poetry,  not  only  from 
the  spirit  of  it,  but  also  by  adopting  its 
words.  Enghsh  prose  has  thus  a  great  po- 
etical vocabulary  open  to  it,  and  a  large  and 
generous  freedom  from  conventional  gram- 
mar. It  draws  its  nourishment  from  English 
blank  verse,  and  thus  strengthened  strides 
onward  like  a  bridegroom.  If  you  are  a 
physician  inditing  a  prescription,  or  a  lawyer 
drawing  a  will,  or  a  civil  engineer  putting 
down  logarithmic  matter,  write  in  French 
prose :  your  patient  will  die,  his  testament 
be  sustained,  or  an  Eiffel  Tower  be  erected 
to  his  memory  in  the  correctest  and  clearest 
manner  possible.  But  when  you  write  a 
prayer,  or  exhort  a  forlorn  hope,  or  put  into 


204     ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH  LITERATURE 

•words  any  of  those  emotions  that  give  life 
its  dignity,  let  your  speech  be  English,  that 
your  reader  shall  feel  emotional  elevation,  his 
heart  lifted  up  within  him,  while  his  intellect 
peers  at  what  is  beyond  his  reach. 

If  a  man  admits  that  for  him  poetry  is  the 
chief  part  of  literature,  he  must  concede  that 
French  prose  cannot  awaken  in  him  those 
feelings  which  he  has  on  reading  the  English 
Bible,  Milton,  Ruskin,  Carlyle,  or  Emerson. 
It  is  the  alliance  of  our  prose  with  our  poetry 
that  makes  it  so  noble.  What  English-speak- 
ing person  in  his  heart  thinks  that  any 
French  poet  is  worthy  to  loose  one  shoe- 
latchet  in  the  poets'  corner  of  English  shoes? 

"  The  man  that  loves  another 

As  much  as  his  mother  tongue, 
Can  either  have  had  no  mother, 

Or  that  mother  no  mother's  tongue." 

We  have  shown  too  much  deference  to  this 
inmate  of  clubs  and  weekly  newspapers,  this 
international  Frankenstein  of  literary  cosmo- 
politanism. English  poetry  is  the  greatest 
achievement  in  the  world ;  we  think  so,  why 
then  do  we  make  broad  our  phylacteries  and 
say  that  we  do  not?  Ben  Jonson  says,  "  There 
is  a  necessity  that  all  men  should  love  their 


ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE     205 

country ;  he  that  professeth  the  contrary 
may  be  delighted  with  his  words,  but  his 
heart  is  not  there."  But  we  here  concern 
ourselves  with  another  matter.  We  desire 
to  praise  the  two  chief  qualities  that  have 
combined  to  make  English  literature  so  great : 
they  are  common  sense  and  audacity,  and 
their  combined  work  is  commonly  called,  for 
lack  of  a  better  name,  romance. 

Younger  brother  to  English  poetry  is  Eng- 
lish romance,  which  of  all  strange  things  in 
this  world  is  most  to  be  wondered  at.  Brother 
to  poetry,  cousin  to  greed,  neighbor  to  ideal- 
ism, friend  to  curiosity,  Enghsh  romance  in 
deed  and  word  is  the  riches  of  the  English 
race.  Its  heroes  march  down  the  rolls  of 
history  like  a  procession  of  kings  :  Raleigh 
and  Spenser,  Drake  and  Sidney,  Bunyan  and 
Harry  Vane,  Hastings  and  Burns,  Nelson 
and  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Gordon  and  Kipling. 
Strange  as  English  romance  is,  if  a  man 
would  learn  its  two  constituent  qualities  in 
little  space,  he  need  only  take  from  the 
library  shelf  "  The  Principal  Navigations, 
Voyages,  Traffiques,  and  Discoveries  of  the 
English  Nation,  made  by  Sea  or  Overland," 
compiled    by    Richard   Hakluyt,    Preacher. 


206     ENGLISH   AND   FRENCH  LITERATURE 

Here  we  perceive  the  bond  between  romance, 
greed,  idealism,  and  curiosity  ;  here  we  see 
how  the  British  Empire  plants  its  feet  of 
clay  upon  the  love  of  gain.  Trade,  trade, 
trade,  with  Russians,  Tartars,  Turks,  with 
Hindoos,  Hottentots,  and  Bushmen,  with 
Eskimo,  Indian,  and  South  Sea  Islander ; 
and  yet  hand  in  hand  with  greed  go  curi- 
osity, love  of  adventure,  and  search  for  some 
ideal  good.  A  wonderful  people  are  the 
English  so  faithfully  to  serve  both  God  and 
Mammon,  and  so  sturdily  to  put  their  great 
qualities  to  building  both  an  empire  and  a 

literature. 

II 

Who  is  not  pricked  by  curiosity  upon  see- 
ing "  certeine  bookes  of  Cosmographie  with 
an  universalle  Mappe  "  ?  Who  is  not  splen- 
didly content,  of  a  winter  evening,  his  ob- 
livious boots  upon  the  fender,  his  elbows 
propped  on  the  arms  of  his  chair,  to  read 
Mr.  Preacher  Hakluyt's  Voyages?  Who  does 
not  feel  himself  disposed  "  to  wade  on  farther 
and  farther  in  the  sweet  study  of  Cosmo- 
graphie"? Let  us  leave  gallicized  gallants, 
literary  cosmopoHtes,  their  adherents  and 
accomplices,  and  read  old  Hakluyt. 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     207 

What  quicker  can  attune  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  the  valiant  explorations  that  are 
to  follow  than  to  read  that  "  when  the  Em- 
perour's  sister,  the  spouse  of  Spaine,  with  a 
Fleete  of  130  sailes,  stoutly  and  proudly 
passed  the  narrow  Seas,  Lord  William  How- 
ard of  Effingham,  accompanied  with  ten 
ships  onely  of  Her  Majestie's  Navie  Roiall, 
environed  their  Fleete  in  most  strange  and 
warrelike  sorte,  enforced  them  to  stoope  gal- 
lant, and  to  vaile  their  bonets  for  the  Queene 
of  England  "  ! 

On  the  9th  of  May,  1553,  the  ordmances 
of  M.  Sebastian  Cabota,  Esquier,  Governour 
of  the  Mysterie  and  Companie  of  Marchants 
Adventurers,  were  all  drawn  up.  The  mer- 
chants aboard  the  ships  were  duly  warned 
"in  countenance  not  to  shew  much  to  desire 
the  forren  commodities ;  nevertheless  to  take 
them  as  for  friendship ;  "  and  Sir  Hugh  Wil- 
loughby,  Knight,  Richard  Chancellor,  their 
officers,  mariners,  and  company,  set  sail  down 
the  Thames  in  the  Edward  Bonaventure,  the 
Bona  Speranza,  and  the  Confidencia,  on  their 
way  by  the  northeast  passage  to  Cathay. 
Before  they  had  gone  far,  Thomas  Nash, 
cook's   mate   on    the    Bona    Speranza,    was 


208     ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

ducked  at  the  yard's-arm  for  pickerie.  The 
ships  sailed  up  the  North  Sea,  past  Scan- 
dinavia, and  into  the  Arctic  Ocean,  where 
Sir  Hugh  Willoughby  and  his  two  ships 
were  lost,  but  Chancellor  entered  the  White 
Sea,  and  landed  in  Russia.  He  then  drove 
on  sledges  to  Moscow,  where  he  was  received 
most  graciously  by  his  Majesty  Ivan  the 
Terrible.  Chancellor  wrote  a  description  of 
the  Russians,  in  which  he  tells  their  ways 
and  customs.  Although  Chancellor  could 
remember  very  well  the  days  of  Henry  VIH. 
and  the  seizure  of  church  lands,  yet  he  re- 
marks that  when  a  rich  Russian  grows  old 
"  he  shall  be  called  before  the  Duke,  and  it 
shall  be  sayd  unto  him.  Friend,  you  have 
too  much  living,  and  are  unserviceable  to 
your  Prince,  lesse  will  serve  you,  and  the  rest 
will  serve  other  men  that  are  more  able  to 
serve,  whereupon  immediately  his  living  shall 
be  taken  away  from  him  saving  a  little  to 
find  himselfe  and  his  wife  on ;  and  he  may 
not  once  repine  thereat,  but  for  answere  he 
will  say,  that  he  hath  nothing,  but  it  is  God's 
and  the  Duke's  graces,  and  cannot  say,  as 
we  the  common  people  in  England  say,  if 
wee  have  anything,  that  it  is  God's  and  our 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     209 

owne.  Men  may  say  that  these  men  are  in 
wonderful  great  awe  and  obedience,  that 
thus  one  must  give  and  grant  his  goods 
which  he  hath  bene  scraping  and  scratching 
for  all  his  life,  to  be  at  his  Prince's  pleasure 
and  commandement." 

Coming  back  from  his  second  voyage, 
Chancellor  brought  an  ambassador  from  Ivan 
Vasilivich,  Emperour  of  all  Russia,  Great 
Duke  of  Smolenski,  Tuerskie,  Yowgoriskie, 
Permskie,  Viatskie,  Bolgarskie  and  Sibierskie, 
Emperour  of  Chernigoskie,  Rezanskie,  Polod- 
skie,  Rezewskie,  Bielskie,  Rostoskie,  Yerasla- 
veskie,  Bealozarskie,  Oudarskie,  Obdorskie, 
Condenskie,  and  manie  other  countries,  to 
the  most  famous  and  excellent  Princes  Philip 
and  Mary.  (This  patent  inferiority  of  de- 
signation was  the  cause  of  much  diplomatic 
correspondence.)  Chancellor  sailed  out  of 
the  White  Sea  through  the  Arctic  Ocean ; 
for  the  Russians  had  no  access  to  the  Baltic, 
as  they  had  granted  exclusive  privileges  to 
the  Flemings.  Storms  overtook  him  on  the 
Scottish  coast :  Chancellor  and  most  of  the 
men  were  drowned ;  only  "  the  noble  person- 
age of  the  Ambassadour  "  was  saved. 

In   1557   Master  Anthonie  Jenkinson  in 


210     ENGLISH   AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE 

the  Primerose,  the  Admirall,  with  three  other 
tall  ships,  took  this  ambassador  back  to  Rus- 
sia by  the  same  northern  way,  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  leagues.  Jenkinson  sailed  up  the 
river  Dwina  in  a  little  boat,  lodging  in  the 
wilderness  by  the  riverside  at  night ;  and  "  he 
that  will  travell  those  wayes,  must  carie  with 
him  an  hatchet,  a  tinderboxe,  and  a  kettle, 
to  make  fire  and  seethe  meate,  when  he  hath 
it ;  for  there  is  small  succour  in  those  parts, 
unless  it  be  in  townes."  He  was  graciously 
received  in  Moscow  by  the  Emperor  about 
Christmas  time,  and  witnessed  the  court  cer- 
emonies. At  their  Twelphtide,  the  Emperor 
with  his  crown  of  Tartarian  fashion  upon 
his  head,  and  the  Metropolitan  attended  by 
divers  bishops  and  nobles  and  a  great  con- 
course of  people,  went  in  long  procession  to 
the  river,  which  was  completely  frozen  over. 
A  hole  was  cut  in  the  ice,  and  the  Metropoli- 
tan hallowed  the  water  with  great  solemnity, 
and  did  cast  of  the  water  upon  the  Emper- 
or's son  and  upon  the  nobility.  "  That  done, 
the  people  with  great  thronging  filled  pots  of 
the  said  water  to  carie  home  to  their  houses, 
and  divers  children  were  throwen  in,  and 
sicke  people,  and  plucked  out  quickly  again, 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     211 

and  divers  Tartars  christened.  Also  there 
were  brought  the  Emperour's  best  horses  to 
drink  of  the  sayd  hallowed  water,  and  like- 
wise many  other  men  brought  their  horses 
thither  to  drinke,  and  by  that  means  they 
make  their  horses  as  holy  as  themselves." 

The  Eno-lish  merchants  were  now  well  es- 
tablished  in  Muscovy,  and  sent  home  frequent 
reports  about  the  manners  and  customs  of 
Russians.  They  noticed  the  Russian  custom 
"  every  yere  against  Easter  to  die  or  colour 
red  with  Brazell  a  great  number  of  egs ;  the 
common  people  use  to  carie  in  their  hands 
one  of  their  red  egs,  not  onely  upon  Easter 
day,  but  also  three  or  foure  days  after,  and 
gentlemen  and  gentlewomen  have  egs  gilded 
which  they  cary  in  like  maner.  When  two 
friends  meete,  the  one  of  them  sayth,  the 
Lord  is  risen,  the  other  answereth,  it  is  so 
of  a  truth,  and  then  they  kisse  and  exchange 
their  egs  both  men  and  women,  continuing 
in  kissing  4  dayes  together." 

One  of  the  agents  of  the  company  in  Mos- 
cow, Master  Henrie  Lane,  had  a  controversy 
with  one  Sheray  Costromitskey  concerning 
the  amount  of  a  debt  due  from  the  Eng;- 
lish  merchants.     Lane  proffered  six  hundred 


212     ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE 

rubles,  but  the  Russians  demanded  double  the 
sum,  and  not  agreeing  they  had  recourse  to 
law.  For  trial  by  combat  Master  Lane  was 
provided  with  a  strong,  willing  EngHshman, 
one  of  the  company's  servants ;  but  the  Rus- 
sian champion  was  not  willing  to  meet  him, 
and  the  case  was  brought  to  trial  before  two 
chief  judges.  The  English  party  were  taken 
within  the  bar,  and  their  adversaries  placed 
outside.  "  Both  parties  were  first  perswaded 
with  great  curtesie,  to  wit,  I  to  enlarge  mine 
offer,  and  the  Russes  to  mitigate  their  chal- 
lenge. Notwithstanding  that  I  protested  my 
conscience  to  be  cleere,  and  their  gaine  by 
accompt  to  bee  sufficient,  yet  of  gentlenes 
at  the  magistrate's  request  I  make  proffer 
of  100  robles  more  ;  which  was  openly  com- 
mended, but  of  the  plaintifes  not  accepted. 
Then  sentence  passed  with  our  names  in  two 
equall  balles  of  waxe  made  and  holden  up  by 
the  Judges,  their  sleeves  stripped  up.  Then 
with  standing  up  and  wishing  well  to  the 
trueth  attributed  to  hun  that  should  be  first 
drawen,  by  both  consents  from  among  the 
multitude  they  called  a  tall  gentleman,  say- 
ing :  Thou  with  such  a  coate  or  cap,  come 
up  :  where  roome  with  speede  was  made.    He 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     213 

was  commanded  to  hold  his  cappe  (wherein 
they  put  the  balles)  by  the  crown,  upright 
in  sight,  his  arme  not  abasing.  With  like 
circumspection  they  called  at  adventure  an- 
other tall  gentleman,  commanding  him  to 
strip  up  his  right  sleeve,  and  willed  him  with 
his  bare  arme  to  reach  up,  and  in  God's 
name  severally  to  take  out  the  two  balles  ; 
which  he  did  delivering  to  either  Judge  one. 
Then  with  great  admiration  the  lotte  in  ball 
first  taken  out  was  mine  :  which  was  by  open 
sentence  so  pronounced  before  all  the  peo- 
ple, and  to  be  the  right  and  true  parte.  I 
was  willed  forthwith  to  pay  the  plaintifes  the 
sum  by  me  appointed.  Out  of  which,  for 
their  wrong  or  sinne,  as  it  was  termed,  they 
payd  tenne  in  the  hundred  to  the  Emperour. 
Many  dayes  after,  as  their  maner  is,  the  peo- 
ple took  our  nation  to  be  true  and  upright 
dealers,  and  talked  of  this  judgement  to  our 
great  credite." 

Thus,  with  daring,  good  sense,  and  good 
luck,  English  commerce  laid  the  foundation 
stones  of  the  English  Empire.  But  the 
reader  must  read  for  himself  how  these  mer- 
chants flew  the  English  flag  for  the  first 
time  across  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  made  their 


214     ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

way  to  Persia  in  tlie  teeth  of  danger.  Or 
if  the  reader  would  learn  more  of  English 
courage,  let  him  read  that  volume  in  which 
Raleigh  describes  how  Sir  Richard  Grenville 
fought  the  Revenge. 

We  wish  only  to  call  attention  to  the 
union  of  boldness  and  prudence  in  these  Eng- 
lish traders  at  the  budding  time  of  Eliza- 
bethan literature. 

Ill 

Commerce  is  like  colonizing :  it  demands 
manly  virtue,  forethought,  audacity,  quick- 
ness to  advance,  slowness  to  yield  ;  it  requires 
diplomacy,  flattery,  lies,  and  buffets.  Mis- 
adventure may  follow  misadventure,  yet  the 
money-bags  of  England  continue  to  propel 
new  adventurers  over  the  globe.  Merchant 
adventurers  do  not  seek  Utopias,  —  let  a  man 
plan  a  Utopia,  and  the  EngHsh  cut  his  head 
off ;  they  seek  a  gay  and  gallant  market,  where 
black,  red,  or  yellow  men  will  barter  taffeta 
and  furs  for  English  homespun,  English  glass, 
and  English  steel ;  or,  better  yet,  will  give 
England  a  kingdom  for  "  a  cherry  or  a  fig." 
The  money-getting  English  are  no  misers. 
Their  gold-bags  breed  audacity.  Nobles  of 
Devon,  frankhns  of  Kent,  burghers  of  Lou- 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE    215 

don,  make  many  companies  of  merchant  ad- 
venturers, and  delight  to  risk  their  posses- 
sions for  the  sake  of  great  returns.  Half  the 
famous  ships  that  beat  the  Spanish  Armada 
—  the  Bull,  the  Bear,  the  Dreadnaught, 
the  Arkraleigh  —  were  built  for  the  com- 
mercial enterprise  of  piracy  on  the  Spanish 
Main.  Elizabeth  and  her  nobles  drew  their 
ten  per  centum  per  mensem  from  such  in- 
vestments. 

Money  searched  for  cheap  routes  to  Ca- 
thay, and  opened  up  trade  with  Russia,  Tar- 
tary,  and  Persia.  Hope  of  gain  sent  colonists 
westward  to  Virginia,  lured  by  the  descrip- 
tion of  land  "  which  will  not  onely  serve  the 
ordinary  turnes  of  you  which  are  and  shall 
bee  planters  and  inhabitants,  but  such  an 
overplus  sufficiently  to  be  yielded,  as  by  way 
of  trafficke  and  exchaunge  will  enrich  your- 
selves the  providers,  and  greatly  profit  our 
owne  countrymen."  The  swelling  money- 
bags of  England  set  Chve  and  Hastings  over 
India,  took  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and 
sought  twentyfold  increase  in  Australia. 

Eno^lish  commerce  is  no  headstron""  fool. 
It  looks  first,  and  leaps  afterward.  Like  a 
wary  captain,  it  takes  its  reckoning  by  com- 


216     ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH  LITERATURE 

pass  and  sextant,  and  then  spreads  all  sail. 
It  acts  with  the  self-confidence  of  common 
sense.  Commerce  is  as  prudent  as  Cecil  and 
as  bold  as  Drake;  but  prudence  is  the  con- 
trolling spirit.  /Common  sense,  also,  is  the 
characteristic  of  Engiish  literature  -which  has 
exalted  it  so  far  beyond  its  modern  rivals. 
Powerful  as  have  been  its  fantastic,  mon- 
strous, and  metaphysical  elements,  disturbing 
as  have  been  affectation  and  demagogy,  these 
influences  have  been  but  little  eddies  whii-ling 
round  in  the  strong,  steady  current  of  com- 
mon sense  that  has  carried  English  literature 
on  its  flood.  Common  sense  unconsciously 
recognizes  that  men  are  human  ;  that  imagi- 
nation must  play  round  the  facts  of  daily 
life ;  that  poetry  and  prose  must  be  wrought 
out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth,  and  not  out  of 
some  heavenly  essence.  Common  sense  acts 
upon  instant  needs,  and  meets  the  dangers 
of  the  hour ;  it  is  not  diverted  from  its  path 
by  fears  or  allurements  of  the  distant  future  ; 
it  climbs  like  a  child,  clinging  to  one  balus- 
ter and  then  another,  till  it  plants  its  steps 
securely.  There  is  a  world  of  difference  be- 
tween it  and  "  une  certaine  habitude  raison- 
nable  qui  est  le  propre  de  la  race  frangaise  en 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE    217 

poesie,"  according  to  Sainte-Beuve.  One  is 
bred  in  the  closet  by  meditation ;  the  other 
comes  from  living. 

The  good  sense  of  Chaucer,  Shakespeare, 
Dryden,  Defoe,  Pope,  Fielding,  Walter  Scott, 
Tennyson,  George  EUot,  and  others  walls  in 
English  literature,  so  that  it  can  stand  the 
push  of  unruly  genius  in  a  Marlowe  or  a 
Shelley.  Against  this  dominating  common 
sense  allegory  rises  in  vain  ;  passion  cannot 
overtopple  it ;  too  subtle  thought  is  sloughed 
off  by  it ;  dreams  serve  but  to  ornament ;  de- 
sires are  tamed  ;  parlor  rhymesters  are  tossed 
aside.  Common  sense,  with  its  trust  in  com- 
mon humanity,  has  made  English  literature. 
The  same  solid  wisdom  which  makes  Eng^- 
lish  money  ballasts  Enghsh  verse  and  prose. 
There  is  an  impress  as  of  pounds,  shillings, 
and  pence  on  most  of  their  pages ;  not  vul- 
gar and  rude,  as  these  words  suggest,  but 
like  images  on  antique  coins,  stamped  by  con- 
servatism, by  precious  things  accumulated, 
by  tradition  and  authority. 

There  is  a  certain  melancholy  about  pru- 
dence ;  it  bears  witness  to  innumerable  pun- 
ishments suffered  by  ignorance  and  rashness, 
which  must  have  been  heaped  up  to  a  mon- 


218    ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

strous  mass  in  order  to  create  prudence  as  an 
instinct.  But  the  worst  punishments  were 
administered  before  prudence  appeared,  and 
we  reap  the  harvest.  It  is  dismal  and  pa- 
thetic to  think  that  common  men  should 
receive  advantage  from  the  sufferings  of 
Marlowe,  Greene,  Peele,  Chatterton,  Byron, 
Shelley,  and  Poe.  But  after  this  manner 
runs  the  world  away.  English  literature  has 
been  nourished  by  such  sufferings,  and  the 
English  Empire  has  also  received  from  indi- 
viduals all  that  they  had  to  give.  There  is 
pathos  in  the  reports  sent  by  Hakluyt's  trad- 
ers to  the  home  company.  The  investors 
dangle  round  Hampton  Court,  or  sit  in  their 
counting-rooms  in  the  city,  while  the  adven- 
turers leave  England  for  years,  brave  hard- 
ships, risk  disease  and  death,  and  send  their 
duties  back  with  humble  hopes  that  their 
good  masters  in  London  may  be  content  with 
what  they  do. 

"  Coastwise  —  cross-seas  —  round  the  world  and  back  again, 
Whither  the  flaw  shall  fail  us,  or  the  Trades  drive  down: 
Plain  -  sail  —  storm  -  sail  —  lay   your   board   and   tack 
again  — 
And  aU  to  bring  a  cargo  up  to  London  town  I " 


ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH  LITERATURE     219 

rv 

Nevertheless,  the  desire  to  make  money 
is  not  of  itself  capable  of  great  action.  It 
can  put  its  livery  upon  a  number  of  needy 
fellows  who  care  not  what  they  do,  —  who 
will  trap  beavers  in  Alaska,  dig  diamonds  in 
Brazil,  carry  Hampshire  kerseys  to  Tartars ; 
but  its  main  function  is  to  be  the  utensil  for 
the  true  adventurer :  if  he  will  sail,  it  builds 
a  ship ;  if  he  will  plant,  it  gives  him  seed ; 
if  he  will  rob,  it  loads  him  with  powder  and 
shot ;  it  is  the  pack-mule  that  shall  carry  him 
and  his  equipment  over  the  Alps  of  enter- 
prise. The  real  strength  of  money  lies  in 
the  wild  spirits  that  will  use  it.  Curiosity 
seeking  the  secrets  of  the  world,  daring  look- 
ing for  giant  obstacles,  conquerors  in  search 
of  possessions  whereto  their  courage  shall  be 
their  title-deeds,  —  these  must  have  money- 
getters.  They  publish  abroad  their  needs 
that  are  to  be,  and  farmers,  miners,  weavers, 
spinners,  millers,  smiths,  and  all  grubbers 
spare  and  save,  sweating  to  serve  romantic 
adventurers. 

The  spirit  of  romance  has  flung  its  bold- 
ness  into    English    literature.     It   plunders 


220    ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

■what  it  can  from  Greek,  Latin,  Italian, 
French,  and  Spanish.  It  ramps  over  the 
■world :  it  dashes  to  Venice,  to  Malta,  to  Con- 
stantinople, to  the  Garden  o£  Eden,  to  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  to  Lilhput,  to 
desert  islands,  to  Norman  baron  and  Burgun- 
dian  noble,  to  Virginia,  to  Florence,  to  India, 
to  the  South  Sea,  to  Africa,  and  fetches  home 
to  England  foreign  wealth  by  land  and  sea. 
How  boldly  it  sails  east,  west,  south,  and 
north,  and  by  its  shining  wake  shows  that  it 
is  the  same  spirit  of  romance  that  has  voyaged 
from  Arthurian  legend  to  Mr.  Kipling ! 

French  men  of  letters  have  not  had  enouo^h 
of  this  audacious  spirit.  They  troop  to  Paris, 
where  they  have  been  accustomed  to  sit  on 
their  classical  benches  since  Paris  became 
the  centre  of  France.  The  romance  of  Vil- 
lon is  the  romance  of  a  Parisian  thief ;  the 
romance  of  Ronsard  is  the  romance  of  the 
Parisian  salon.  Montaigne  strolls  about  his 
seigniory  while  England  is  topsy-turvy  with 
excitement  of  new  knowledge  and  new  feel- 
ing. Corneille  has  the  nobleness  of  a  jeime 
jille.  You  can  measure  them  all  by  their 
ability  to  plant  a  colony.  Wreck  them  on  a 
desert  island,  Villon  will  pick  blackberries, 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH   LITERATURE     221 

Ronsard  will  skip  stones,  Montaigne  whittle, 
Corneille  look  like  a  gentleman,  and  the 
empire  of  France  will  not  increase  by  a 
hand's-breadth.  Take  a  handful  of  Eliza- 
bethan poets,  and  Sidney  chops,  Shakespeare 
cooks,  Jonson  digs.  Bacon  snares,  Marlowe 
catches  a  wild  ass:  in  twenty-four  hours  they 
have  a  log  fort,  a  score  of  savage  slaves,  a 
windmill,  a  pinnace,  and  the  cross  of  St. 
George  flying  from  the  tallest  tree. 

It  is  the  adventurous  capacity  in  English 
men  of  letters  that  has  outdone  the  French. 
They  lay  hold  of  words  and  sentences  and 
beat  them  to  their  needs.  They  busy  them- 
selves with  thoughts  and  sentiments  as  if 
they  were  boarding  pirates,  going  the  near- 
est way.  They  do  not  stop  to  put  on  uni- 
forms ;  whereas  in  France  the  three  famous 
literary  periods  of  the  Pleiade,  the  Classi- 
cists, and  the  Romanticists  have  been  three 
struggles  over  form,  —  quarrels  to  expel  or 
admit  some  few  score  words,  questions  of 
rubric  and  vestments.  The  English  have 
never  balked  at  means  after  this  fashion. 
Fenelon  says  of  the  French  language  "  qu'elle 
n'est  ni  variee,  ni  hbre,  ni  bardie,  ni  propre 
a  donner  de  I'essor." 


222     ENGLISH   AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE 

It  is  not  fanciful  to  find  this  common  ele- 
ment of  daring  in  both  English  trade  and 
poetry.  English  adventurers  have  sailed 
eastward  and  westward,  seeking  new  homes 
for  the  extravagant  spirits  that  find  the  veil 
of  familiarity  hang  too  thick  over  their  na- 
tive fields  and  cottages.  Turn  to  the  French  : 
their  merchants  ply  to  Canada  and  India  in 
vain.  What  sails  belly  out  before  the  poetry 
of  Ronsard  or  MaUierbe  ?  Into  what  silent 
sea  is  French  imagination  the  first  to  break  ? 
The  Elizabethan  poets  are  a  crew  of  mari- 
ners, rough,  rude,  bold,  truculent,  boyish,  and 
reverent.  How  yarely  they  unfurl  the  great 
sails  of  Englisii  literature  and  put  to  open 
sea!  The  poor  French  poets  huddle  together 
with  plummet  in  their  hands,  lest  they  get 
beyond  their  soundings. 

No  man  can  hold  cheap  the  brilliant  valor 
of  the  French.  From  Roncesvalles  to  the 
siege  of  Paris  French  soldiers  have  shown 
headlong  courage.  Nothing  else  in  military 
history  is  so  wo:iderful  as  the  French  soldiers 
from  the  10th  of  August  to  Waterloo.  Their 
dash  and  enterprise  are  splendid,  but  they 
do  not  take  their  ease  in  desperate  fortune 
as  if  it  were  their  own  inn,  as  Englishmen 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     223 

do.  They  have  not  the  shiftiness  and  cun- 
ning that  can  dodge  difficulties.  They  can- 
not turn  their  bayonets  into  reaping-hooks, 
their  knapsacks  into  bushels,  their  cannon 
to  keels,  their  flags  to  canvas.  They  have 
not  the  prehensile  hands  of  the  English  that 
lay  hold,  and  do  not  let  loose. 

English  courage  owes  its  success  to  its 
union  with  common  sense.  The  French 
could  send  forty  Light  Brigades  to  instant 
death ;  French  guards  are  wont  to  die  as  if 
they  went  a-wooing ;  but  the  French  have 
not  the  versatile  absorption  in  the  business 
at  hand  of  the  English.  The  same  distinc- 
tion shows  in  the  two  literatures.  Nothing 
could  be  more  brilliant  than  Victor  Hugo  in 
1830.  His  verse  flashes  like  the  white  plume 
of  Navarre.  His  was  the  most  famous 
charge  in  literature.  Hernani  and  Ruy  Bias 
have  prodigious  brilliancy  and  courage,  but 
they  lack  common  sense.  They  conquer, 
win  deafening  applause,  bewilder  men  with 
excitement ;  but,  victory  won,  they  have  not 
the  aptitude  for  settling  down.  They  are 
like  soldiers  wdio  know  not  how  to  go  back 
to  plough  and  smithy.  The  great  French 
literature  of  the  Romantic  period  did  not  dig 


224     ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

foundation,  slap  on  mortar,  or  lay  arches  in 
the  cellar  of  its  house,  after  the  English 
fashion.  Next  to  Victor  Hugo,  not  count- 
ing Goethe,  the  greatest  man  of  letters  in 
Europe,  of  this  century,  is  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
Mark  the  difference  between  him  and  Hugo. 
Scott's  poetry  and  novels  have  a  vigorous 
vitality  from  his  common  sense,  and  there- 
fore they  are  ingrained  in  the  trunk  of  Eng- 
Hsh  literature  ;  the  fresh  sap  of  their  ro- 
mance quickens  every  root  and  adds  greenery 
to  every  bough.  Victor  Hugo  is  passionate, 
imaginative,  majestic,  powerful,  eloquent, 
demagogical,  but  he  does  not  stand  the  hard 
test  of  squaring  with  the  experience  of  com- 
mon men. 

Consider  M.  Zola,  the  greatest  of  living 
French  novelists,  and  we  find  the  same  lack 
in  him.  His  strong,  sturdy  talents  have 
fought  a  brilliant  and  victorious  fight ;  but 
the  brilliancy  of  his  victory  serves  merely  as 
a  light  to  rally  his  enemies ;  he  has  offended 
against  the  abiding  laws  of  the  common 
knowledge  of  common  men,  and  his  books 
have  already  passed  the  zenith  of  their  glory. 
There  is  hardly  a  famous  man  who  does  not 
point  the  same  moral.     Michelet  records  the 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     225 

introduction  of  tobacco.     "  Des  le  debut  de 
cette  drogue,  on  put  prevoir  son  effet.     EUe 
a  supprime  le  baiser.     Ceci  en  1610.     Date 
fatale  qui  ouvre  les  routes  ou  Thomme  et  la 
femme    iront    divergents."      Read    Renan's 
chapters  upon  King  David.     Take  Racine, 
of  whom  Voltaire  says   "  que  personne  n  a 
jamais  porte  I'art  de  la  parole  a  un  plus  haut 
point,  ni  donne  plus  de  charme  a  la  langue 
frangaise."     He  is  noble,  and  appeals  to  the 
deepest   feelings   in    men,  —  love,  religion, 
heroism.     By  virtue  of  his  spiritual  nature 
he  deserves  great  reverence,  but  he  does  not 
touch   the  understanding  of  common  men. 
Ronsard,  du  Bellay,  Clement  Marot,  have  the 
same  fault ;   they  are  witty,   epigrammatic,  ' 
musical,  but  they  have  not  the  one  essential   .. 
element.     The  two  most  successful  French    ! 
men  of  letters  are  the  two  possessing  most   / 
common  sense,  Moliere  and  Balzac.  / 

Common  sense  is  difficult  to  define,  and 
suffers  from  a  vulgar  notion  that  it  is  totally 
separate  and  distinct  from  high  virtues.  It 
is  Sancho  Panza,  but  Sancho  learned  to  ap- 
preciate Don  Quixote.  Common  sense  knows 
that  it  must  be  squire  to  the  hero  until  the 
hero    shall   recognize   his   own   dependence 


226     ENGLISH   AND   FRENCH   LITERATURE 

upon  the  squire.  The  wise  and  witty  Vol- 
taire failed  in  this  respect,  for  he  did  not 
understand  the  daily  need  of  idealism.  Com- 
mon sense  sees  the  immediate  obstacle  which 
is  to  be  overcome  ;  in  order  to  sharpen  a 
pencil,  instead  of  Durandal  or  Excalibur,  it 
uses  a  penknife.  Common  sense  trims  its 
sails  to  catch  the  breeze,  be  it  a  cat's-paw, 
but  it  does  not  avoid  the  hurricanes  of  pas- 
sion. Common  sense  uses  common  words ; 
it  husbands ;  it  practices  petty  economies,  so 
that  the  means  of  the  hero  shall  be  ample 
to  his  great  enterprise.  Of  itself  it  can  do 
little,  but  it  makes  straight  the  path  for 
great  achievement. 

Jowett  was  fond  of  repeating  Coleridge's 
remark  that  "  the  only  common  sense  worth 
having  is  based  on  metaphysics."  This  say- 
ing is  in  part  true,  and  it  would  not  be  ovei*- 
curious  to  trace  the  indirect  influence  of 
metaphysics  on  the  English  Empire  and  on 
English  literature. 

V 

There  is  no  profit,  however,  in  attempt- 
ing to  lug  reason  into  this  matter  of  the 
preference  of  English  literature  over  French. 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE     227 

There  is  no  justification  here  except  by 
faith.  There  is  none  to  hold  the  scales, 
while  we  heap  English  books  into  one  to 
outweigh  French  books  in  the  other.  Men 
who  have  thrown  off  the  bias  of  nationality 
have  disqualified  themselves  for  the  task,  for 
they  have  cut  off  all  those  prime  feelings 
and  bhnd,  indistinct  sentiments  that  must 
be  the  judges  of  last  resort,  and  have  set  up 
in  their  stead  reason  propped  on  crutches  of 
grammar,  syntax,  style,  and  euphony.  In 
fundamental  matters,  the  intellect  must  take 
counsel  of  the  heart.  Every  man's  memory 
has  stored  in  some  odd  corner  the  earliest 
sounds  of  his  mother's  voice  saying  the 
Lord's  Prayer ;  it  remembers  the  simple  words 
that  first  distinguished  the  sun  and  the  moon, 
buttercup  and  dandeHon,  Kai  the  bull  ter- 
rier and  Sally  the  cat.  No  cultivation,  no 
sojourning  in  foreign  lands,  no  mastery  of 
many  books,  can  erase  these  recollections. 
Some  men  there  are  whose  conception  of  hu- 
man relations  is  so  large  and  generous  that 
to  them  the  differences  between  peoples  are 
slight,  when  matched  with  the  resemblances. 
Such  men  are  noble  and  lovable,  but  they 
are    not    qualified   to    pronounce   upon   the 


228     ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

merits  of  two  languages.  Native  language 
is  restricting  and  confining  so  far  as  con- 
cerns peoples  in  international  affairs,  but  it 
ennobles  and  enlarges  fellow  countrymen. 
Out  of  our  native  language  are  made  our 
home  and  our  country.  The  sweet  sounds 
of  speech  heard  only  at  home  create  our 
fundamental  affections.  The  separation  of 
nation  from  nation  is  a  cheap  price  to  pay 
for  the  great  benefit  which  we  of  one  people 
have  received  from  the  bond  of  common 
speech. 

That  which  is  true  of  language  is  true  of 
literature.  The  great  books  for  us  are  the 
books  which  we  read  when  we  were  young ; 
they  bewitched  us  with  our  own  language, 
they  brought  to  us  our  English  thoughts. 
The  power  of  the  English  Bible  is  not  the 
reward  of  merit  only,  —  merit  has  never 
enjoyed  such  measure  of  success ;  it  exists 
because  we  read  it  and  re-read  it  when  we 
were  httle  boys.  This  early  language  of 
our  mother  and  of  our  books  is  part  of  the 
"  trailing  clouds  of  glory  "  that  came  with 
us  from  our  home.  Love  of  it  is  a  simple 
animal  instinct,  and  the  man  who  can  pro- 
claim hmiself  free  from  it  does  not  compre- 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE    229 

hend  the  riches  of  language  or  the  great 
passions  of  Hfe.  We  would  alter  a  line  of 
Wordsworth  to  fit  this  case  :  — 

"  We  must  be  bond  who  speak  the  tongue  that  Shakespeare 
spake." 

We  cannot  throw  off  the  strong  shackles 
that  Shakespeare,  the  Bible,  and  all  our  Eng- 
lish inheritance  have  put  upon  us ;  we  are 
barred  and  bolted  in  this  English  tongue; 
only  he  who  does  not  feel  the  multitudinous 
touch  of  these  spiritual  hands  of  the  great 
English  dead  can  stand  up  and  say  that  the 
English  and  French  languages  are  equal. 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  used  to  instruct  us 
—  as  a  professor  of  Hellenism  was  bound  to 
do  —  that  we  must  divest  ourselves  of  na- 
tional prejudices.  We  all  admired  him,  and 
meant  to  mend  our  ways.  He  borrowed  the 
word  "  saugrenu "  from  the  French  to  tell 
us  more  exactly  what  manner  of  behavior 
was  ours ;  but  faster  than  his  prose  pushed 
us  on  to  international  impartiality  his  poetry 
charmed  us  back.  Mr.  Arnold's  poetry  is 
essentially  English;  it  is  the  poetry  of  an 
Eng-lish  Enorlishman.  He  is  a  descendant 
in  direct  line  from  Sidney,  Herbert,  Gray, 
Cowper,   Wordsworth.     He  appeals  to   our 


230    ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

native  emotion  ;  he  has  English  morals,  Eng- 
lish sentiment,  English  beliefs  and  disbeliefs ; 
his  character  is  doubly  emphasized  by  his 
occasional  imitation  of  Greek  forms.  He 
has  about  him  the  atmosphere  of  the  AngH- 
can  Church,  —  love  of  form,  fondness  for 
those  emotions  which  are  afraid  to  acknow- 
ledge instinct  as  their  father,  and  yet  shud- 
der at  logic.  Mr.  Arnold  is  an  English 
poet,  and  for  that  reason  we  love  him,  and 
disregard  his  entreaties  for  cosmopolitan  stan- 
dards. 

We  are  intolerant ;  we  are  among  those 
persons  from  whom  bigots  successfully  seek 
recruits  ;  we  have  little  respect,  and  rightly 
enough,  for  the  free  play  of  our  reason  ;  we 
follow  the  capricious  humor  of  our  affections. 
We  like  old  trodden  paths,  on  whose  rude 
bottoms  we  can  still  discern  the  prints  of  our 
fathers'  feet.  We  are  yeomen  of  the  mind, 
as  ready  to  throw  our  intellectual  caps  in  the 
air  for  a  Henry  VHI.  as  for  Hampden  and 
liberty.  We  have  the  dye  of  conservatism ; 
we  cannot  hide  it  for  more  than  a  few  sen- 
tences, and  then  only  upon  forewarning.  We 
have  just  cause  to  fear  that  our  behavior  is 
bad  in  the  presence  of  the  sonnets  of  M. 


ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE    231 

Jose  Maria  de  Heredia  ;  we  make  faces  when 
we  read  Verlaine.  We  cannot  take  those 
gentlemen  as  poets.  They  look  to  us  like  mas- 
queraders,  harlequins,  unfairly  brought  from 
the  darkness  of  the  stage  into  the  light  of 
the  sun.  Try  as  we  may  to  read  an  essay 
by  M.  Brunetiere,  a  poem  by  M.  Sully  Prud- 
homme,  or  some  French  novel  of  the  year, 
all  is  in  vain.  We  must  accept  that  condi- 
tion of  the  mind  to  which  it  has  pleased  God 
to  call  us. 

What  a  pleasure,  after  reading  those  books, 
to  go  back  to  old  Hakluyt,  and  read  aloud 
the  lists  of  merchandise  sent  abroad  or 
fetched  home  :  item,  good  velvets,  crimosins, 
purples  and  blacks,  with  some  light  watchet 
colours ;  item,  ten  or  twelve  pieces  of  westerne 
karsies,  thicked  well  and  close  shut  in  the 
weaving  and  died  into  scarlet  ;  item,  one 
hundred  brushes  for  garments  (none  made 
of  swine's  hair)  ;  item,  forty  pieces  of  fine 
hoUand.  What  breaking  of  fences,  what 
smashing  of  locks,  what  air,  what  comrade- 
ship, what  a  sense  of  poetry  !  Surely,  there 
is  more  poetry  in  the  making  of  the  Enghsh 
Empire  than  was  ever  printed  in  France. 

Let  us  open  wide  the  doors  of  our  minds 


232    ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

and  give  hospitable  reception  to  foreign  litera- 
ture whence  soever  it  may  come,  but  let  us 
not  forget  that  it  only  comes  as  a  friend  to 
our  intelHgence,  and  can  never  be  own  brother 
to  our  affections. 

"  A  health  to  the  native-born  !  " 


DON  QUIXOTE 


DON  QUIXOTE 

It  is  always  good  news  to  hear  that  new 
champions  are  coming  forward  to  translate 
''  Don  Quixote  "  into  English.  It  is  a  bold 
deed,  well  worthy  a  knight-errant  of  the  pen  ; 
and  if  many  men  make  the  attempt,  we  may 
be  perhaps  so  fortunate  as  hereafter  to  have 
a  true  English  translation.  "  Don  Quixote," 
it  is  said  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  has 
been  translated  into  every  language  in  Eu- 
rope, even  including  Turkish,  but  I  cannot 
believe  that  any  language  is  so  fit  as  English 
to  give  the  real  counterfeit  presentment  of 
the  book.  One  might  guess  that  a  Romance 
language  would  do  better,  but,  on  reflection, 
French  prose  lacks  humor,  and  Italian  has 
not  sufficient  subtlety  to  give  the  lights  and 
shadows  of  "  Don  Quixote ; "  and  as  for 
German  prose,  in  spite  of  Goethe  it  still  is 
German  prose.  There  is  a  scintilla  of  truth, 
so  far  as  this  translation  is  concerned,  in  the 
saying  of  Charles  V.,  that  French  is  the  Ian- 


236  DON  QUIXOTE 

guage  for  dancing-masters,  Italian  for  sing- 
ing birds,  and  German  for  horses.  I  should 
like  to  be  able  to  read  the  Turkish  transla- 
tion. I  imagine  that  there  must  be  a  dignity 
and  self-respect  in  the  language  that  would 
befit  Don  Quixote  to  a  nicety ;  but  for  Sancho 
it  would  not  do,  —  he  would  be  homesick 
talking  Turkish. 

There  are  a  number  of  English  transla- 
tions,—  one  by  Mr.  Shelton  long  ago,  one 
by  Smollett,  and  others  by  Motteux,  Jarvis, 
Duffield,  Ormsby,  and  Watts,  —  all  more  or 
less  inadequate,  if  I  may  judge  from  parts, 
for  I  have  never  been  so  willful-blame  as  to 
read  them  all.  In  truth,  the  translation  is  a 
very  difficult  matter.  Don  Quixote  himself 
is  one  of  the  most  delicately  drawn  charac- 
ters in  fiction  ;  almost  every  Spanish  word  he 
speaks  stands  out  in  the  reader's  mind,  sepa- 
rate and  distinct,  like  a  stroke  in  a  Rem- 
brandt etching.  How  can  you  measure  out 
their  English  equivalents  in  the  finely  ad- 
justed scales  of  language  unless  you  have 
ten  talents  for  weights  ?  Epigrams  are  com- 
monly of  little  use  in  finding  the  way  to 
truth,  but  Coleridge  has  left  a  saying  that, 
I  think,  helps  us  materially  in  this  matter  of 


DON  QUIXOTE  237 

translation.  "  Prose,"  he  said,  "  is  words  in 
the  best  order ;  Poetry  is  the  best  words  in 
the  best  order."  Now,  by  what  sleight  of 
hand  shall  a  man  keep  this  best  order  of 
words  in  shifting  thoughts  from  one  lan- 
guage to  another  ?  In  poetry  we  are  waking 
up  to  this,  and  Homer  and  Dante  are  ren- 
dered into  English  prose.  Now  and  again  a 
man,  if  he  have  the  luck  to  be  a  man  of 
genius,  may  make  English  poetry  when  he 
professes  to  translate  a  foreign  poet.  Such 
a  one  was  Mr.  Fitzgerald.  But  I  know  of 
no  one  who  has  made  both  poetry  and  a 
translation,  with  a  few  exceptions  :  such  as 
Shelley  in  his  translation  of  the  angels' 
chorus  in  "  Faust,"  Dr.  Hedge  with  Luther's 
hymn,  and  Wordsworth  with  Michelangelo's 
sonnet,  "  Ben  puo  talor  col  mio  ardente  de- 
sio."  Maybe  the  translators  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament were  such. 

Of  all  prose  that  I  know,  I  should  say  that 
"  Don  Quixote  "  was  the  hardest  to  translate 
out  of  the  original  tongue ;  for  Cervantes  has 
used  his  words  in  the  best  order  very  often, 
and  his  Spanish  tongue  was  of  so  fine  a  tem- 
per —  for  it  had  been  framed  among  high- 
strung  gentlemen,  quick  in  quarrel,  urbane 


238  DON   QUIXOTE 

in  manner,  and  of  a  broad  human  courtesy 
such  as  gentlemen  have  in  Utopia,  and  all 
men,  I  needs  must  think,  in  heaven  —  that 
the  translator  need  be  of  a  stout  heart. 
Words  are  delicate  works.  Nature  has  nur- 
tured them,  art  has  toiled  over  them.  For 
a  thousand  years  those  Spanish  words  have 
been  shaped  by  Spanish  mouths,  and  now 
some  zealous  translator,  like  a  lean  apothe- 
cary, expects  to  catch  their  fragrance  and 
cork  it  up  in  English  smelling-bottles.  All 
a  nation's  sentiment  has  gone  into  its  words. 
Great  musicians,  architects,  painters,  and 
sculptors  put  into  their  works  the  feelings 
of  their  country  and  of  their  age,  but  these 
works  remain  the  works  of  individuals  and 
bear  their  personal  stamp,  whereas  all  the 
nation,  at  all  times,  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration, has  been  putting  its  passions  into  its 
speech.  The  Spanish  heart  is  not  the  Eng- 
lish heart. 

Moreover,  the  translator  of  Cervantes  has 
another  gi-eat  difficulty.  Don  Quixote  is  the 
delineation  of  a  man's  character ;  he  is  as 
real  as  any  hero  in  fiction  from  Achilles  to 
Alan  Breck,  and  much  more  so  than  the  he- 
roes who  lie  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


DON  QUIXOTE  239 

"  Er  lebt  und  ist  noch  starker 
Ala  alle  Todten  siud." 

This  very  reality  lies  in  the  arrangement 
of  words,  and  slips  through  the  translator's 
fingers.  The  hero  was  alive  and  then  is 
done  into  English,  a  process  that  has  much 
similarity  to  embalming.  To  draw  the  like- 
ness of  a  living  being  in  words  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  tasks  in  art.  We  all,  no  doubt, 
can  remember  some  figure  coming,  in  the 
days  of  our  childhood,  into  our  Eden  from 
the  vague  outer  world,  that  impressed  itself 
deeply  in  our  memories.  Such  a  one  I  can 
remember,  — a  delicately  bred  gentleman,  one 
of  those  in  whom  the  gentle  element  was  so 
predominant  that  perhaps  the  man  was  pushed 
too  much  aside.  His  bearing  spoke  of  train- 
ing and  discipline  received  in  some  place 
out  of  Eden  that  we  knew  not  of,  and  there 
was  a  manner  of  habitual  forbearance,  almost 
shrinking,  in  his  daily  actions,  as  if  he  feared 
that  whatever  he  touched  might  turn  to  sor- 
row, which  still  kept  us  behind  the  line  across 
which  his  tenderness  was  ever  inviting  us. 
I  think  to  describe  his  smile  and  to  trans- 
late "  Don  Quixote  "  would  be  tasks  of  like 
quality. 


240  DON   QUIXOTE 

But  of  all  books  in  the  world  "  Don 
Quixote  "  is  the  book  for  an  English-speak- 
ing boy.  There  is  a  time  in  his  boyhood 
while  the  sun  of  life  throws  a  long  shadow 
behind  him,  when,  after  he  has  read  the 
Waverley  Novels,  Cooper,  and  Captain  Mar- 
ryat,  he  pauses,  hesitating  between  Thack- 
eray and  Dickens.  Which  shall  he  take? 
The  course  is  long,  for  a  boy  is  a  most  just 
and  generous  reader.  He  reads  his  novelist 
straight  through  from  start  to  finish,  '^  David 
Copperfield,"  "Oliver  Twist,"  "Nicholas 
Nickleby,"  "Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  and  all, 
ending  finally  with  a  second  reading  of 
"Pickwick."  That  is  the  way  novels  should 
be  read.  Reading  the  first  novel  of  one  of 
the  great  men  of  literature  is  like  Aladdin 
going  down  into  the  magic  cave  :  it  sum- 
mons a  genie,  who  straightway  spreads  a 
wonderfid  prospect  before  you,  but  it  is  not 
till  the  second  or  third  book  that  you  under- 
stand all  the  power  of  the  master  slave.  It 
is  at  that  moment  of  hesitation  that  "  Don 
Quixote"  should  be  put  into  the  boy's  hands; 
but  that  cannot  be  done  now  because  there 
is  no  satisfactory  English  translation. 

Of  course,  "Don  Quixote"  is  a  man's  book, 


DON   QUIXOTE  241 

also  ;  Cervantes  has  breathed  into  its  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life,  and,  like  the  macrocosm, 
it  has  a  different  look  for  the  boy  and  for 
the  man  of  fifty.  You  can  find  in  it  the 
allegory  that  the  ideal  is  out  of  place  in  this 
"workaday  world,  that  the  light  shineth  in  a 
darkness  which  comprehendeth  it  not.  You 
can  find  the  preaching  of  vanity,  if  such  be 
your  turn  of  mind,  in  "Don  Quixote"  as  well 
as  in  the  world.  But  the  schoolboy  does  not 
look  for  that ;  there  is  no  vain  thing  in  life 
for  him,  and  perhaps  his  is  the  clearer  vision. 
And  with  this  schoolboy,  pausing  as  I  have 
suggested  on  the  brink  of  Thackeray  or 
Dickens,  a  translation  of  "Don  Quixote  "  has 
the  best  chance  of  success.  Its  defects  will 
be  of  such  a  nature  as  will  mar  the  man's 
enjoyment,  but  not  his.  It  will  give  him  the 
gallant  gentleman  pricked  by  a  noble  con- 
tempt for  the  ignoble  triumphant  and  for 
the  acquiescent  many  ;  he  shall  have  there 
the  lofty  disregard  of  facts  that  hedge  in 
housekeepers,  barbers,  and  parsons  ;  he  shall 
find  courage,  endurance,  knightliness,  and 
reverence  for  woman.  After  a  boy  has  once 
been  squire  to  Sir  Kenneth,  to  Ivanhoe,  and 
to  Claverhouse,  what  business  has  he  in  life 


242  DON   QUIXOTE 

but  to  right  wrongs,  to  succor  maidens,  and 
to  relieve  widows  and  all  who  are  desolate 
and  oppressed?  What  if  this  gallant  gen- 
tleman be  a  monomaniac,  and  be  subjected 
to  disasters  at  the  hands  of  farmyard  louts 
and  tavern  skinkers,  by  windmills  and  galley 
slaves :  must  not  Ivanhoe's  squire  march 
through  Vanity  Fair  and  lodge  in  Bleak 
House,  his  long  breeches  unentangled  in 
spurs,  and  his  chief  weapon  of  oJSense  car- 
ried in  his  waistcoat  pocket?  Heine  says 
that  he  read  "  Don  Quixote "  for  the  first 
time  when  a  boy,  and  that  then  he  "  did  not 
know  the  irony  that  God  put  into  the  world, 
and  which  the  great  poet  had  imitated  in  his 
little  world  of  print  and  paper."  Heine  is 
mistaken  ;  there  is  no  question  of  knowledge 
and  ignorance.  The  boy  has  his  world  as 
heavy  to  an  ounce,  weighed  in  scales  of  avoir- 
dupois, as  that  of  a  man  of  fifty,  and  there 
is  no  irony  in  it.  The  boy  is  not  the  subject 
of  illusion ;  there  is  in  fact  no  irony  there. 
The  man  of  fifty,  le  soi-dismit  desillusion7i6, 
is  certainly  on  the  border  of  presumption,  to 
say  that  it  is  there,  and  then  to  call  the  boy 
an  ignoramus.  To  be  sure,  he  commonly 
couples  his  offensive  epithet  with  some  miti- 


DON   QUIXOTE  243 

gating  adjective,  as  "  liappy  fool,"  or  thus, 
"his  pretty  ignorance."  But  in  place  of  the 
adjective  there  should  be  an  apology.  Every 
man  is  born  into  a  house  where  there  is  a 
chamber  full  of  veritable  chronicles  of  Tris- 
tram and  Launcelot,  of  Roland  and  Rinaldo 
di  Mont'  Albano  ;  and  if  his  housekeeper, 
his  barber,  and  his  parson  wall  up  the  door 
and  tell  him  that  Freston  the  great  enchanter 
has  swooped  down  on  dragon  back  and  car- 
ried it  off  by  night,  his  acceptance  of  their 
assertions  and  his  lofty  compassion  for  his 
old  illusions  furnish  but  poor  proof  of  wisdom. 
It  is  for  the  boy  that  a  good  translation 
should  be  made,  and  that  might  be  done  ;  one 
in  which  Don  Quixote  shall  talk  like  a  schol- 
arly gentleman,  and  in  which  there  shall  be 
no  conscious  grin  of  the  translator  spoiling 
the  whole,  as  in  that  wretched  version  by 
Motteux.  The  boy  wants  two  qualities  in 
his  books,  enthusiasm  and  loyalty  ;  and  here 
he  has  them  jogging  on  side  by  side  through 
four  good  volumes.  Sainte-Beuve  says  that 
Joubert's  notion  of  enthusiasm  was  nne  j^^ciix 
elevee  ;  a  boy's  idea  is  la  guerre  elevee,  and 
Cervantes  was  of  that  mind.  He  was  a  sol- 
dier of  the  best  kind,  fighting  for  Eui'ope 


244  DON   QUIXOTE 

against  Asia  at  Lepanto,  and  esteeming  his 
lost  arm  the  most  honorable  member  of  his 
body.  Don  Quixote  is  the  incarnation  of 
enthusiasm ;  and  what  loyalty  was  ever  like 
Sancho's,  even  to  the  deathbed  where  he 
beseeches  Don  Quixote  to  live  many  years, 
"  for  it  would  be  the  utmost  foolishness 
to  die  when  no  one  had  murdered  him "  ! 
There  are  many  who  are  loyal  to  a  friend's 
deeds,  and  some  to  his  faults,  but  to  be 
loyal  to  another's  dreams  and  visions  is  the 
privilege  of  very  few.  Besides,  the  boy  de- 
mands incident,  and  here  there  is  the  great- 
est variety  of  adventure,  of  that  delightful 
kind  that  happens  in  La  Mancha  without 
having  to  be  sought  in  Trebisond  or  Cathay. 
Another  reason  for  a  good  translation  is 
that  "Don  Quixote"  is  the  first  modern  novel. 
It  is  the  last  of  the  romances  of  chivalry  and 
the  first  novel ;  and  as,  on  the  whole,  most 
of  the  great  novels  are  English  novels  (for 
what  other  language  can  show  a  like  rich- 
ness to  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  "  Tom  Jones," 
"Rob  Roy,"  "Pride  and  Prejudice,"  "Vanity 
Fair,"  "David  Copperfield,"  "Adam  Bede," 
and  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "),  there  should  be 
an  adequate  English  version  of  it.     So  many 


DON   QUIXOTE  245 

novels  of  much  skill  and  force  are  written 
nowadays  that  we  are  too  often  swayed  in  our 
judgment  of  them  by  the  pulse  of  the  year  or 
of  the  decade.  Were  it  not  well,  after  read- 
ing Mr.  Meredith  or  Mr.  Moore,  to  take  our 
bearings  by  a  mark  that  has  withstood  the 
changing  sentiments  of  ten  generations  of 
mortal  men  ?  "  You  cannot  fool  all  the  peo- 
ple all  the  time."  Men  during  three  hundred 
years  are  of  so  many  minds,  and  have  such 
diverse  dispositions  and  temperaments,  and 
are  placed  in  such  different  circumstances, 
with  various  passions  and  prejudices,  that 
any  book  that  receives  the  suffrage  of  all  is 
proved  to  be,  to  use  Sainte-Beuve's  phrase, 
iin  livre  de  Vhumanite,  By  going  back  to 
these  great  human  books  we  learn  to  keep 
our  scales  truly  adjusted.  Goethe  said  that 
every  year  he  was  wont  to  read  over  a  play 
by  Moliere. 

There  have  been  a  great  many  theories 
about  the  book,  speculations  as  to  what  pur- 
pose Cervantes  had  in  view  when  he  wrote 
it.  The  chief  two  are  that  he  intended  a 
burlesque  upon  romances  of  knight-errantry, 
and  that  he  intended  an  allegorical  satire 
upon  human  enthusiasm.     Doubtless  he  be- 


246  DON  QUIXOTE 

gan  with  the  purpose  of  ridicuHng  the  old 
romances,  but,  as  Heine  says,  genius  gallops 
ahead  of  its  charioteer.  By  the  seventh 
chapter  he  found  himself  with  Don  Quixote 
and  Sancho  Panza  seeking  adventures  in  La 
Mancha;  he  had  in  his  heart  a  deep  and 
serious  knowledge  of  life,  and  in  his  brain 
wit  and  fancy  such  that  the  world  has  but 
once  had  better,  and  he  wrote.  Men  must 
express  the  deep  feelings  within  them  :  the 
common  man  to  one  or  two  by  words  and 
acts  and  silence,  the  man  of  genius  to  the 
world  by  such  means  as  nature  has  made 
easiest  for  him.  In  Spain,  since  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  the  one  form  of  popular 
literature  had  been  the  romance  of  knight- 
errantry.  The  three  great  cycles  of  roman- 
tic fiction  —  of  King  Arthur  and  the  Round 
Table,  of  Charlemagne  and  his  Paladins,  and 
of  the  Greek  empires  founded  by  Alexander 
the  Great  —  had  spread  all  over  western 
Europe,  and  had  long  before  served  their 
office.  Their  place  in  Spain  was  filled  by  the 
romances  of  knight-errantry.  Of  these,  the 
first  and  best  was  "Amadis  of  Gaul,"  which 
was  probably  written  in  Castile  about  the 
year  1350.     The  old  version  has  been  long 


DON  QUIXOTE  247 

lost,  but  Garci-Ordoiiez  de  Montalvo  wrote 
a  new  one  some  time  after  the  conquest  of 
Granada,  which  obtained  wide  popularity 
and  still  exists.  The  success  of  this  was  so 
brilliant  that  a  great  many  books  were  writ- 
ten in  imitation  of  it.  In  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century  these  romances  met  with 
two  powerful  enemies :  one  was  the  spirit  of 
the  Catholic  Reaction,  the  other  the  spirit  of 
classical  culture.  In  1543  Charles  V.  forbade 
that  any  of  these  books  should  be  printed 
or  sold  in  the  West  Indies,  and  in  1555  the 
Cortes  made  its  petition  to  the  Emperor  to 
make  the  like  law  for  Spain.  The  text  of  the 
petition  reads  thus  :  "  Moreover,  we  say  that 
it  is  most  notorious,  the  hurt  that  has  been 
done  and  is  doing  in  these  kingdoms  to  young 
men  and  maids  and  to  all  sorts  of  people 
from  reading  books  of  lies  and  vanities,  like 
Amadis  and  all  the  books  which  have  been 
modeled  upon  its  speech  and  style,  also 
rhymes  and  plays  about  love  and  other  vain 
things ;  for  young  men  and  maids,  being 
moved  by  idleness  to  occupy  themselves  with 
these  books,  abandon  themselves  to  folly, 
and,  in  a  measure,  imitate  the  adventures 
which  they  read  in  those  books  to  have  hap- 


248  DON  QUIXOTE 

pened,  both  of  love  and  war  and  other  vani- 
ties ;  and  they  are  so  affected  thereby  that 
whenever  any  similar  case  arises  they  yield 
to  it  with  less  restraint  than  if  they  had  not 
read  the  books ;  and  often  a  mother  leaves 
her  daughter  locked  up  in  the  house,  think- 
ing that  she  has  left  her  to  her  meditations 
(recogida),  and  the  girl  falls  to  reading 
books  of  that  kind,  so  that  it  were  better 
if  the  mother  had  taken  her  with  her.  .  .  . 
And  that  it  is  to  the  great  hurt  of  the  con- 
sciences, because  the  more  people  take  to 
these  vanities,  the  more  they  backslide  from 
and  cease  to  find  enjoyment  in  the  Holy, 
True,  and  Christian  Doctrine."  Wherefore 
the  petition  asks  that  no  more  such  books 
be  printed,  and  that  all  those  existing  be 
gathered  up  and  burned,  and  that  no  book 
be  printed  thereafter  without  a  license  ;  "  for 
that  in  so  doing  your  Majesty  will  render  a 
great  service  to  God,  taking  persons  from 
the  reading  of  books  of  vanities,  and  bring- 
ing them  back  to  read  religious  books  which 
edify  the  mind  and  reform  the  body,  and 
will  do  these  kingdoms  great  good  and 
mercy."  Mr.  Ticknor  and  other  commenta- 
tors have  gathered  together  condemnations 


DON   QUIXOTE  249 

upon  tliese  romances  uttered  by  various  per- 
sons of  note  prior  to  the  publication  of  "  Don 
Quixote."  Tliere  can  be  little  doubt  that 
these  faultfinders  were  Puritans  of  the  Cath- 
olic Reaction,  and  that  the  same  spirit  influ- 
enced the  Cortes.  In  this  same  feeling  the 
Puritans  in  England  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time  attacked  the  stage. 

In  the  preface  to  Part  I.,  Cervantes  repre- 
sents himself  as  sitting  with  his  chin  on  his 
hand,  pondering  what  he  shall  do  for  a 
preface,  when  a  friend  comes  in,  who,  after 
making  some  rather  dull  suggestions,  says, 
"  This  book  of  yours  is  an  invective  against 
books  of  knight-errantry  ;  .  .  .  your  writ- 
ing has  no  other  object  than  to  undo  the 
authority  wliich  such  books  have  among  the 
uneducated ;  "  and  he  ends  with  the  advice, 
"  Make  it  your  purpose  to  pull  to  pieces  the 
ill-based  contrivance  of  these  knight-errant 
books,  which  are  hated  by  some,  but  praised 
by  many  more  ;  for  if  you  accomplish  this, 
you  will  have  done  a  great  deal."  And  Part 
II.  ends  with  a  declaration  by  Cide  Hamete 
Ben  Engeli  (the  author  in  disguise)  that  his 
"only  desire  has  been  to  make  men  dislike  the 
false  and  foolish  stories  of  knight-errantry, 


250  DON  QUIXOTE 

which,  thanks  to  my  true  Don  Quixote,  are 
beginning  to  stumble,  and  will  fall  to  the 
ground  without  any  doubt."  These  are  the 
arguments  for  Hmiting  and  cutting  down 
the  great  purposes  of  the  book,  a  commen- 
tary on  the  hfe  of  man,  to  a  mere  satire  upon 
silly  and  extravagant  romances ;  but  the  book 
speaks  for  itself. 

With  respect  to  the  other  theory,  that  Cer- 
vantes intended  a  satire  upon  human  enthu- 
siasm, Mr.  Lowell,  in  commenting,  discovers 
two  morals :  the  first,  "  that  whoever  quar- 
rels with  the  Nature  of  Things,  wittingly  or 
unwittingly,  is  certain  to  get  the  worst  of 
it ;  "  the  second,  ^'  that  only  he  who  has  the 
imagination  to  conceive  and  the  courage  to 
attempt  a  trial  of  strength  with  what  foists 
itself  on  our  senses  as  the  Order  of  Nature 
for  the  time  being  can  achieve  great  results 
or  kindle  the  cooperative  and  efficient  enthu- 
siasm of  his  fellow  men."  By  this  interpre- 
tation the  condemnation  of  the  quarrel  is 
itself  condemned  by  the  deeper  moral.  But 
it  little  profits  to  seek  after  Cervantes'  mo- 
tives ;  he  wrote  about  life,  and  he  does  not 
draw  any  final  conclusions.  He  observes 
and  writes.     He  tells  of  a  gentleman  who 


DON  QUIXOTE  251 

found  the  world  out  of  joint,  and  with  a 
"  frolic  welcome "  proclaimed  that  he  was 
"  born  to  set  it  right."  The  attempt  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  most  disastrous  and  delight- 
ful consequences.  Don  Quixote  is  sometimes 
triumphant,  but  many  more  times  mocked, 
mauled,  persecuted,  and  despitefully  used  by 
clown  and  duke,  and  Sancho  shares  all  his 
fortunes.  Side  by  side  go  Imagination  on 
his  hippogriff,  and  Common  Sense  on  his 
donkey.  At  the  end  of  the  book,  the  reader, 
loving  and  admiring  Don  Quixote,  loving 
Sancho,  and  having  rejoiced  at  every  piece  of 
good  fortune  that  has  come  to  them  on  their 
ill-starred  career,  hates  and  despises  all  those 
who  have  ill  used  them,  including  those  two 
wiseacres  the  Parson  and  the  Barber.  If  the 
unoffending  reader  must  draw  a  moral,  he 
would  seem  to  hit  near  the  mark  by  infer- 
ring that  enthusiasm  justifies  its  own  appel- 
lation, and  that  the  divine  in  us  is  the  only 
thing  worth  heeding  and  loving,  though  it 
behave  with  lunacies  inconstant  as  the  moon, 
or  go  to  live  with  pubhcans  and  sinners. 
But  why  draw  a  moral  at  all  ?  Life  is  very 
big,  and  there  is  less  dogma  now  than  there 
used  to  be  about  the  meaning  or  the  worth 


252  DON  QUIXOTE 

of  it,  and  an  observer  of  life  may  travel 
about  and  note  what  he  sees  without  being 
compelled  to  stand  and  deliver  his  conclu- 
sions. What  should  we  say  if  Cide  Hamete 
Ben  Engeli  had  made  an  end  in  good  Arabic 
with  "  Life  is  but  an  integration  of  Matter 
with  a  concomitant  dissipation  of  Motion  "  ? 
Let  the  great  books  of  the  world  escape  these 
hewers  of  epigrams  and  drawers  of  morals. 
Hamlet  has  escaped  to  a  place  of  safety ;  so 
has  the  Book  of  Job.  Faust  is  on  the  way 
thither,  and  Don  Quixote  will  one  day  keep 
them  company.  It  is  a  tale  of  life  drawn 
from  the  author's  imagination,  and  it  is 
enough  to  know  that  a  man  who  had  lost  an 
arm  in  a  sea-fight  and  had  been  a  captive 
slave  for  five  years,  who  had  been  poor  and 
persecuted,  began  this  joyous  and  merry  his- 
tory in  prison,  and  continued  it  in  the  same 
strain  of  joy  and  merriment  to  the  end.  Let 
any  man  tired 

"  to  behold  Desert  a  beggar  born, 
And  needy  Nothing  trimmed  in  jollity," 

betake  himself  to  "  un  lugar  de  La  Man- 
cha.''  The  very  words  conjure  up  spring- 
time, holidays,  and  morning  sun,  and  he 
shall  feel  like  the  poet 


DON  QUIXOTE  253 

"  Quant  erba  vertz  e  f uebla  par, 
E  I'  flor  brotonon  per  verjan, 
E  r  rossiuhols  autet  e  clar 
Leva  sa  votz  e  mov  son  chan." 


The  joy  of  it  is  masculine  and  boyish ;  it 
maketh  for  Hfe,  like  all  good  things.  The 
reader  never  stops  to  think  whether  there 
be  wit  or  humor,  irony  or  optimism.  These 
questionings  are  foisted  upon  you  by  the 
notes.  If  you  read  a  Spanish  edition,  be- 
ware of  the  notes.  Some  there  are  who,  in 
their  schooldays,  acquired  a  wise  preference 
of  ignorance  to  notes,  but  I  have  known  many 
who  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence 
to  read  a  note,  and  then  begin  again  exactly 
at  the  asterisk  where  they  had  left  off.  The 
notes  in  the  editions  by  the  Spanish  Acad- 
emy, Dr.  Bowie,  Pellicer,  and  Clemencin  are 
all  to  be  skipped. 

In  Don  Quixote  we  believe  that  we  have 
a  partial  portrait  of  Cervantes.  He  has  de- 
scribed somewhere  his  own  physical  appear- 
ance in  a  manner  very  hke  to  the  description 
of  the  knight,  and  in  the  latter's  character 
we  feel  sure  that  we  have  the  real  Cervantes. 
Certainly  there  is  there  the  likeness  of  a 
high-spirited  Spanish    gentleman  at   a  time 


254  DON   QUIXOTE 

when  Spanish  gentlemen  were  the  first  in 
the  world.  Every  little  detail  about  the 
knio-ht  is  told  with  such  an  intimate  affee- 
tion  that  Cervantes  must  have  been  writing 
down  whatever  he  believed  was  true  of  his 
own  best  self.  The  ready  knowledge  with 
which  he  wrote  is  manifest  from  the  care- 
lessness with  which  he  makes  mistakes,  as 
with  Sancho's  ass,  on  which  Sancho  sud- 
denly mounts  half  a  page  after  losing  him 
forever,  and  in  the  names  of  la  Senora  Panza, 
and  in  various  details.  Certainly  Cervantes 
is  very  fond  of  Don  Quixote,  and  does  him 
justice ;  and  he  has  a  kindliness  for  the 
reader,  too,  and  pays  him  for  his  sore  sym- 
pathies every  now  and  then  by  the  joyous 
feeling  of  victory  which  he  receives  when 
Don  Quixote,  in  the  midst  of  a  company  that 
think  him  mad,  delivers  a  brilHaut  harangue, 
leaving  them  confounded  and  the  reader  exul- 
tant. Sancho  said  Don  Quixote  ought  to  have 
been  a  parson,  and  you  feel  that  he  would 
have  adorned  any  position  of  dignity  within 
the  gift  of  the  Majesty  of  Spain.  The  art 
with  which  the  story  is  told  and  the  char- 
acters are  drawn  grows  upon  one's  wonder. 
For  example,  Don  Quixote  has  been  lowered 


DON   QUIXOTE  255 

down  into  the  cave  of  Montesinos,  and  after 
some  hours,  during  which  Sancho  has  be- 
come much  alarmed  for  his  master's  safety, 
he  reappears  and  gives  an  account  of  the 
most  marvelous  adventures.  Sancho  and  the 
reader  are  aghast ;  they  know  that  the  ad- 
ventures cannot  be  true,  and  they  know 
equally  well  that  Don  Quixote  is  incapable 
of  telling  a  lie,  and  the  wonder  is  whether 
he  is  mad  or  has  been  dreamino-.  This  same 
wonder  finally  overtakes  Don  Quixote,  and 
you  feel,  without  being  told,  that  he  is  strug- 
gling with  his  memory  to  find  out  what  did 
really  happen  as  he  faces  the  awful  possibil- 
ity that  what  he  related  may  not  have  been 
true.  There  is  a  certain  low  fellow  in  the 
book,  one  Samson  Carrasco,  a  friend  of  the 
Parson  and  the  Barber,  of  good  purposes,  but 
of  no  imagination,  who  devises  a  scheme  to 
fetch  Don  Quixote  home.  This  plan  was  to 
arm  himself  as  a  knight-errant  and  take  Don 
Quixote  captive.  The  approach  of  the  com- 
bat is  very  disagreeable ;  you  cover  over  with 
your  hand  the  lines  ahead  of  where  you  are 
reading,  so  that  you  may  not  read  faster  than 
you  shall  acquire  fortitude  to  bear  whatever 
may  happen.    And  behold,  Kosinante  breaks 


256  DON   QUIXOTE 

into  a  gallop,  dear  horse, —  Boiardo  and 
Bucephalus  never  did  as  much,  —  and  the 
counterfeit  knight  is  hurled  to  the  ground. 
By  the  same  dull  device  this  vulgar  Carrasco 
finally,  near  the  end  of  the  story,  ran  atilt 
with  Don  Quixote  and  unhorsed  him.  He 
dismounted,  and  stood  over  our  hero  with 
his  spear.  The  terms  of  the  combat  were 
that  he  who  was  conquered  should  confess 
that  the  other's  lady  was  the  more  beautiful. 
"  Don  Quixote,  without  raising  his  visor, 
with  weak  and  feeble  voice,  as  if  he  were 
speaking  from  within  a  tomb,  replied  :  *  Dul- 
cinea  of  Toboso  is  the  most  beautiful  woman 
in  the  world,  and  I  am  the  most  miserable 
knight  on  earth,  and  it  were  not  right  that 
the  truth  should  suffer  hurt  from  my  weak- 
ness ;  thrust  home  your  lance.  Sir  Knight, 
and  since  you  have  taken  my  honor,  take 
away  my  life  also.'  "  It  were  difficult  to  im- 
agine that  this  is  a  satire  upon  human  nature, 
and  that  Cervantes  made  mock  of  the  spirit 
of  chivalry. 

One  of  the  deepest  and  most  delightful 
elements  of  the  book  is  the  relation  between 
Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza ;  in  fact,  it 
is  Sancho's  obedience,  his  profound  loyalty 


DON   QUIXOTE  257 

and  belief  in  his  master,  that  throw  both 
their  characters  into  high  rehef  :  and  here 
lies  one  of  the  hardest  tasks  for  the  trans- 
lator ;  for  unless  their  conversations  are  given 
with  the  delicacy  and  grace  of  the  original, 
they  cease  to  be  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho, 
and  become  mere  comic  figures. 

Sancho  has  never  had  full  justice  done  to 
him.  Affection  and  regard  he  has  had  in  fair 
measure,  no  doubt.  One  loves  him  as  one 
loves  a  dog ;  not  the  noble,  fair-limbed,  fine- 
haired  aristocrat,  but  the  shag-haired  little  vil- 
lain, nullius  jilius,  who  barks  at  your  guests, 
and  will  gnaw  a  drumstick  in  my  lady's  cham- 
ber unless  he  be  prevented.  But  Sancho's 
character  and  intelligence  have  not  had  their 
due.  He  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  if  he 
were  one  of  old  Gobbo's  family,  selfish  and 
of  loutish  appetites ;  but  in  truth  he  is  not 
related  at  all.  Sancho  stands  charged  with 
greediness  ;  and  as  to  eating,  he  ate  well 
whenever  he  had  an  opportunity,  but  he 
worked  very  hard  and  needed  food,  for  he 
often  went  supperless  to  bed,  and  was  never 
sure  of  the  morrow.  His  desire  to  be  goher- 
nador  was  the  imperial  fault  of  ambition, 
and  most  honorable ;  and  when  he  governed 


268  DON   QUIXOTE 

Barataria,  he  bore  his  great  office  meekly, 
and  was  a  just  and  beneficent  ruler.  When 
Don  Quixote  first  told  him  of  the  great  for- 
tunes, even  of  a  royal  complexion,  that  some- 
times fall  to  the  lot  of  the  esquire  to  a 
knight  -  errant,  his  first  thought  was  that 
Teresa  Panza  would  be  queen  and  his  chil- 
dren princes.  His  intelligence  bloomed  and 
unfolded  under  the  sunny  influence  of  Don 
Quixote's  company ;  in  fact,  one  of  the  most 
dehghtful  things  in  the  whole  book  is  the 
elevation  of  Sancho's  understanding  as  he 
travels  from  Part  I.  into  Part  II.  Preface- 
makers  say  that  Cervantes  discovered  how 
popular  Sancho  was,  and,  taking  his  cue 
accordingly,  developed  and  expanded  San- 
clio's  wit  and  gifts  of  speech  ;  but  the  true 
reason  is  that  living  with  a  dreamer  of 
dreams  ennobles  the  understanding.  When 
Don  Quixote  had  forbidden  the  brutal  la- 
borer to  thrash  the  boy,  and  made  him  pro- 
mise by  the  laws  of  knighthood,  the  boy  said, 
"  My  master  is  no  knight ;  he  is  rich  John 
Haldudo,  and  he  lives  in  Quintanar."  "  No 
matter,"  replied  Don  Quixote ;  "  the  Haldu- 
dos  may  become  knights ;  every  man  is  the 
child  of  his  own  actions."   By  his  faithfulness 


DON  QUIXOTE  259 

and  loyalty  to  his  master,  Sancho's  condition 
was  made  gentle  and  his  intelligence  was 
quickened.  Even  in  the  beginning  Sancho 
is  by  no  means  backward  in  comprehension. 
Don  Quixote  resolves  to  get  a  sword  that  will 
cut  through  any  steel  and  prevail  over  all 
enchantment.  Sancho  apprehends  that  the 
virtue  of  the  sword  may  be  personal  to  Don 
Quixote,  and  of  no  avail  to  him,  as  he  is  only 
an  esquire.  And  he  explains  that  the  reason 
why  Don  Quixote  was  horribly  beaten  by  the 
Yanguesian  cattle-drivers  was  that  he  had 
neo:lected  to  observe  his  vow  not  to  eat  baked 
bread  or  do  sundry  other  things  until  he 
should  have  obtained  Mambrino's  helmet. 
Don  Quixote  quietly  replies  that  that  is  so, 
and  that  Sancho  was  beaten  also  for  not  re- 
mindins:  him.  Sancho  has  a  orenerous  hu- 
man  sympathy,  too ;  for  when  Don  Quixote 
finds  Cardenio's  love-letter,  he  asks  him  to 
read  it  aloud  "  que  gusto  mucho  destas  cosas 
de  amores.^^  The  difference  in  their  views 
of  life,  however,  and  the  help  they  render 
each  other  in  getting  into  difficulties,  is  the 
precious  quality  of  the  book. 

There  are  a  hundred  men  who  admire  and 
reverence  Dante  for  his  fierce  seriousness  and 


260  DON   QUIXOTE 

burning  convictions  about  life,  to  one  who 
would  feel  that  the  like  reverence  and  admi- 
ration were  due  to  the  laughing  seriousness 
and  smiling  convictions  of  Cervantes.  Heine 
somewhere  draws  a  picture  of  the  gods  din- 
ing and  Hephsestos  limping  among  them  to 
pour  out  the  wine,  while  their  laughter  floats 
off  over  Olympus,  when  suddenly  in  the 
midst  of  them  stalks  a  Jew  and  flings  down 
a  cross  upon  the  banquet -table,  and  the 
laughter  dies.  But  with  the  revolving  years 
laughter  has  once  more  come  to  take  its  place 
as  a  divine  attribute,  and  Cervantes'  serious- 
ness, his  sympathy  and  loving-kindness,  may 
set  him,  in  the  estimation  of  men,  as  high,  as 
wise,  as  deep,  as  Dante.  I  think  with  what 
pleasure  he  and  Shakespeare  met  in  the 
Happy  Isles  and  laughed  together,  while 
Dante,  a  guisa  di  leone,  sat  sternly  apart. 
What  happier  time  was  there  ever  in  those 
Islands  of  the  Blest  than  that  sweet  April 
wherein  those  two  landed  from  Charon's 
bark?  For  surely  Shakespeare's  spirit  tar- 
ried a  few  days  that  they  might  make  their 
voyage  and  entrance  together.  In  Cervantes, 
says  Victor  Hugo,  was  the  deep  poetic  spiiit 
of  the  Renaissance.     In  him  was  the  milk  of 


DON  QUIXOTE  261 

loving-kindness.  After  reading  his  book, 
we  see  a  brighter  light  thrown  on  the  simple 
human  relations,  the  random  meetings  of  men 
and  women  in  this  world  of  ours  that  is  not 
so  unlike  to  La  Mancha,  and  we  become  more 
sensitive  to  the  value  of  words  spoken  by  hu- 
man hps  to  human  ears,  and  of  the  touch  of 
the  human  hand  in  our  greetings  and  part- 
ings. It  is  not  the  usage  among  soldiers  to 
confess  their  own  tenderness,  and  Cervantes 
has  thrown  over  his  confession  the  veil  of 
irony.  Heinrich  Heine  did  the  like.  These 
proud  men  would  not  have  their  women's 
hearts  show  on  their  sleeves,  and  they  mocked 
the  world.     It  was  easily  done. 

"  Diese  "Welt  glaubt  nicht  an  Flammen, 
Und  sie  nimmt's  fiir  Poesie." 

In  Algiers,  Cervantes,  with  some  of  his  fel- 
low captives,  devised  several  plans  of  escape, 
all  of  which  failed,  and  he  was  threatened 
with  torture  if  he  would  not  disclose  the 
names  of  the  conspu'ators  and  the  story  of 
the  plot.  He  told  nothing  but  that  he  alone 
was  responsible.  So  he  did ;  so  he  wrote. 
He  obeyed  the  great  prayer  made  to  each  of 
the  children  of  men  :  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 
lovest  thou  me  ?     Feed  my  sheep." 


A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE 


A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE 

It  was  my  good  luck  to  spend  my  last 
holidays  with  two  companions.  One  was  my 
canoe,  —  a  canvas  canoe  painted  maroon. 
Its  paddle  has  but  one  blade.  There  is  a 
seat  for  another  paddler  in  the  bow,  and 
room  amidships  for  a  passenger  to  lie  quite 
comfortable.  It  is  somewhat  difficult  for  one 
to  paddle  a  canoe  meant  for  two.  You  put 
your  kit  and  a  bag  of  sand  in  the  bow,  lean 
a  little  to  one  side,  and  take  your  sti'okes 
as  even  as  you  can.  In  this  way,  in  calm 
weather,  you  make  good  speed ;  but  when  the 
wind  blows  a  few  points  off  the  bow,  nothing 
but  great  experience  or  sudden  genius  will 
help  you.  The  canoe  moves  as  if  of  a  sud- 
den it  had  heard  music  from  Venusberg ;  it 
whirls  about,  once,  twice,  and  breaks  into  a 
jig ;  then  frolicking  with  the  wind,  pirouettes 
back  whence  you  came,  bobbing  its  bow  like 
a  dancing-master.  "  Certes  c'est  un  subject 
merveilleusement  vain,  divers  et  ondoyant 
que  "  le  canot. 


266         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

I  started  at  the  southern  end  of  Lake 
George.  The  cars  had  been  hot,  and  the 
freight-master  and  expressman  had  both  laid 
violent  hands  on  my  canoe.  From  them  I 
rescued  it  only  by  paying  fees  under  duress, 
which  were  subsequently  returned  to  me  by 
persons  in  authority.  The  sun  was  high,  a 
light  breeze  blew  upon  my  back,  a  soft  gray 
cloud  hung  over  me  Hke  an  umbrella.  My 
pack  and  the  sand-bag  balanced  my  stroke. 
My  sandwiches  and  a  bottle  of  soda-water 
lay  safe  in  a  tin  pail  under  the  seat.  The 
blue-gray  hills  rose  sleepily  in  the  distance. 
The  trees  on  the  shore  bunched  themselves 
into  indistinctness,  and  hid  all  but  the  chim- 
neys of  the  houses.  A  noisy,  self-assured 
Httle  launch  puffed  up  to  us,  and  finding  us 
in  all  points  uninteresting,  whistled  off  up 
the  lake.     I  became  perfectly  content. 

My  other  companion,  carefully  covered  by 
a  rubber  blanket,  lay  still  a  Httle  forward  of 
the  middle  thwart.  He  was  very  fine  in  a 
new  half-calf  binding,  which  he  had  got  from 
the  money  saved  by  the  economy  of  a  foot 
in  the  lencfth  of  the  canoe.  The  lake  was 
so  smooth  that  there  was  no  danger  of  water- 
drops,  and  I  took  off  the  rubber  blanket  that 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE         267 

I  might  see  him.  He  looked  very  dignified 
in  his  bronze-and-blaek  covering.  I  had 
been  told  that  a  canoe  trip  offered  me  a  rare 
opportunity  to  learn  what  science  in  one  of 
its  branches  had  been  doing  of  late,  —  sci- 
ence in  popular  dress  humbling  itself  to  the 
level  of  lewd  persons,  like  Shakespeare's  Bol- 
ingbroke  on  a  holiday. 

But  I  preferred  the  companionship  of  let- 
ters, and  only  hesitated  as  to  whether  I  should 
take  with  me  a  man  of  the  world  or  a  credu- 
lous believer.  In  the  city,  a  believer  is  most 
sympathetic.  We  like  to  hear  a  man  dare  to 
af&rm  and  be  simple,  to  take  his  oath  that 
the  sky  is  blue,  the  earth  solid,  that  right  is 
right,  and  assert  dogmas  on  heights,  depths, 
and  breadths  ;  we  cry  out  for  a  St.  Paul,  an 
Emperor  Julian,  a  Wendell  Phillips  ;  we  care 
little  as  to  the  content  of  the  beHef  s,  but  we 
cannot  stomach  the  irresolute  middle  ground. 

"  Questo  misero  modo 
Tengon  1'  anime  triste  di  coloro, 
Che  visser  senza  infamia  e  senza  lodo." 

We  like  to  hear  men  trundle  their  push-carts 
up  and  down  Broadway  and  Tremont  Street, 
hawking  old  creeds.  Give  us  anything  which 
will  protect  us  against  the  incessant  rolHng 


268         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

and  pitching  of  unstable  thought.  In  the 
city  it  is  not  well  to  cope  with  a  man  of  the 
world,  we  shrink  before  "  son  don  de  sou- 
rire  de  son  ceuvre,  d'y  etre  superieur."  He 
has  us  at  a  disadvantage  and  presumes  upon 
it ;  he  turns  all  the  happenings  among  crowd- 
ing men  and  women  into  parables  for  his 
triumph  and  our  discomfiture. 

In  the  country  all  this  is  reversed.  In 
quiet  and  fresh  air,  dogmas  grow  heavy  as 
poppy  and  mandragora  ;  they  vex  us.  Why 
should  we  join  this  guild  of  thought,  that 
club  of  notions,  that  body  metaphysical  ? 
We  turn  impetuously  to  the  man  of  the 
world ;  his  knowledge  can  no  longer  put  us 
out  of  countenance,  his  experience  is  no  bet- 
ter than  an  oyster  fork  in  a  jungle.  Inevit- 
ably I  rushed  to  Montaigne,  and  was  justi- 
fied. Nothing  is  more  delightful  than  to  be 
with  Montaigne  on  water  and  under  trees  ; 
he  ceases  to  have  any  of  the  supercihousness 
of  a  man  of  the  world,  and  plays  the  elder 
brother  come  back  from  far  travel  and  from 
meeting  many  men.  No  matter  how  often 
you  may  have  read  him  in  town,  he  is  more 
kind,  more  genuine,  more  simple,  when  you 
meet  him  in  this  way  and  hear  him  talk  at 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  269 

ease.  It  is  a  constant  pleasure  to  find  how 
quick  is  his  sympathy  with  happiness,  how 
keen  his  compassion  for  sorrow. 

Lake  George  is  pretty  well  surrounded  by 
a  cordon  of  houses,  but  by  a  discriminating 
course  these  may  be  avoided.  There  is  a  lit- 
tle cove  hid  behind  a  point  of  land,  which, 
beaked  with  a  rock,  juts  into  the  lake.  It  is 
hard  by  a  house  marked  "  The  Antlers  "  on 
the  map.  This  map  you  buy  in  the  cars  from 
the  newsboy.  It  is  the  appendix  to  a  book 
contaming  a  eulogy  on  Lake  George.  Leave 
the  eulogy  on  the  seat ;  the  map  is  very  use- 
ful. This  httle  cove  has  a  graveled  edge 
whereon  to  beach  the  canoe.  From  the  rocky 
beak  you  dive  into  three  fathoms  of  trans- 
parent water  down  towards  the  blue-green 
rocks  at  the  bottom.  After  that  sandwiches 
and  soda-water.  Next  a  pipe  filled  with 
long  cut,  and  opening  volume  one,  the  spirit 
of  Michel  de  Montaigne  sits  beside  you  dis- 
coursing. A  skeptic,  using  the  word  with 
reference  to  life  in  general,  is  intended  to 
mean  one  whose  ideas  have  no  home,  but 
travel  from  inn  to  inn  hke  wandering  Jews ; 
a  man  whose  mind  is  like  a  fine  lady  before 
a  miUiner's  mirror,  who  tries  on  one  bonnet 


270  A   HOLIDAY   WITH   MONTAIGNE 

after  another,  looks  at  it  before  and  behind, 
over  the  shoulder,  at  this  angle  and  that, 
but  cannot  prevail  upon  herself  to  say,  I  take 
this,  this  is  mine.  And  as  this  word  "  skep- 
tic "  is  commonly  used  of  one  with  whom  the 
speaker  finds  some  fault,  it  carries  a  tinge  of 
ill ;  it  signifies  a  person  who  does  not  be- 
lieve that  men  act  from  disinterested  motives, 
does  not  recognize  the  importance  of  human 
feelings,  who  denies  the  dignity  of  human 
existence,  —  one  in  whose  presence  we  are 
ashamed  of  our  love  for  the  melodramatic. 

The  greatest  believer  in  humanity  that 
has  ever  lived  in  Europe  is  Shakespeare.  If 
a  man  be  morbid,  if  somebody's  toes  tread 
upon  the  kibes  on  his  heel,  if  he  be  disheart- 
ened by  ill  success  in  his  government  of  life, 
and,  like  the  blind  man  beating  the  post,  can 
discover  no  virtue  in  men  and  women,  he  be- 
takes himself  to  Shakespeare.  There  he  finds 
the  dignity  of  man  written  in  capital  letters. 
So  it  is  with  the  books  of  all  great  men,  or 
perhaps  one  should  say  of  all  great  men 
whose  fame  and  books  have  lived.  Men  and 
women  do  not  cherish  those  who  despise 
them.  The  books  of  misanthropes  lie  un- 
read in  national  museums.     Dust  to   dust. 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  271 

There  is  no  resurrection  for  them.  There- 
fore one  has  a  right,  in  approaching  a  man 
whose  books  are  on  the  shelves  of  every  li- 
brary, to  assume  that  he  is  not  a  skeptic  in 
any  unworthy  sense.  To  judge  a  man,  mark 
what  interests  him.  Positive  testimony,  as 
lawyers  say,  outweighs  negative  evidence. 
In  his  discourse  De  la  Tristesse,  Montaigne 
tells  how,  after  his  capture  by  Cambyses, 
Psammenitus  watched  with  apparent  serenity 
his  son  marched  to  death,  his  daughter  borne 
away  a  slave,  but  on  beholding  one  of  his 
servants  maltreated  burst  into  weeping.  It 
might  be  thought,  says  Montaigne,  that  his 
fortitude,  equal  to  the  first  sorrows,  had  at 
last  been  overcome,  as  the  last  straw  breaks 
the  camel's  back.  But  when  Cambyses  ques- 
tioned him,  Psammenitus  answered,  "It  is 
because  this  last  displeasure  may  be  mani- 
fested by  weeping,  whereas  the  two  former 
exceed  by  much  all  meanes  and  compasse  to 
be  expressed  by  teares."  He  tells  so  many 
anecdotes  of  this  kind  that  we  are  bound  to 
reject  the  word  "  skeptic  "  as  applicable  to 
Montaigne  in  any  mean  and  narrow  sense. 

If  there  be  in  him  one  quality  more  than 
another  that  wins  the  affection  of  the  reader, 


272  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

it  is  a  certain  manner  of  courtesy,  of  hospi- 
tality, familiar,  yet  of  trained  urbanity,  which 
infects  all  these  discourses.  The  reader  finds 
that  Montaigne  is  wise,  but  he  meets  no  sug- 
gestion that  he  himself  is  f  ooUsh ;  he  dis- 
covers that  Montaigne  is  of  wide  experience, 
and  he  does  not  stop  to  think  it  odd  that 
this  experience,  though  so  broad,  tallies  at  all 
points  with  his  own,  which,  had  he  stopped 
to  think,  he  would  have  known  to  be  narrow. 
It  is  with  such  skill  and  good  breeding  that 
your  host  leads  you  from  matter  to  matter. 
He  spreads  before  you  one  thing  after  an- 
other with  the  freshness  and  unexpectedness 
of  a  conjurer  who  suddenly  out  of  your  own 
memory  produces  meditations  and  reflections 
which  you  had  not  known  were  there.  It  is 
as  if  you  were  both  ruminating  upon  a  theme 
of  common  experience.  Intermingled  with 
his  stories  and  reflections,  his  talk  about  liim- 
seK,  with  its  apparent  self-revelation,  pleases 
us  wholly.  Montaigne  affects  to  wish  us  to 
believe  that  the  book  is  about  himself.  He 
keeps  repeating,  "  C'est  moy  que  je  peins." 
"  These  are  but  my  fantasies,  by  which  I  en- 
deavour not  to  make  things  knowen,  but  my- 
selfe."     "  Others  fashion  man,  I  repeat  him ; 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  273 

and  represent  a  particular  one  but  ill  made." 
While  the  book  is  in  your  hand,  this  egotism, 
or  rather,  say  friendliness,  seems  to  indicate 
a  discriminating  intimacy  with  you,  giving 
you  to  feel  that,  unconsciously  as  it  were,  he 
bends  and  unfolds  himself  in  consequence  of 
the  atmosphere  of  your  personality.  It  is 
this  flattery  in  his  urbanity  that  has  made 
people  believe  in  his  simplicity  and  sincer- 
ity. Readers  should  be  guileless  as  children, 
simple,  innocent,  unsophisticated.  And  it 
may  be  that  Montaigne  is  genuine.  Breed- 
ing need  not  displace  nature.  Montaigne 
does  not  become  a  double-dealer  because  his 
manners  are  good  and  put  us  at  our  ease. 
One  is  a  little  ashamed  to  question  Mon- 
taigne's portrait  of  himself.  Yet  it  is  hard 
not  to  do  so,  for  he  has  the  manner  of  a 
well-graced  actor.  There  is  no  imputation 
of  ill  upon  Montaigne  in  suggesting  that  he 
does  not  give  us  his  real  picture.  Unless 
a  man's  heart  be  pure  gold,  the  public  weal 
does  not  demand  that  he  wear  it  on  his 
sleeve.  Moreover,  it  may  be  that  Montaigne 
endeavors  to  draw  himself,  and  yet,  his  tal- 
ents not  permitting,  does  not.  Howbeit,  his 
manner  has  a  perpetual  charm.     One  would 


274         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

have  young  men  fashion  their  outward  be- 
havior upon  M.  de  Montaigne. 

From  this  little  cove  near  "  The  Antlers  " 
there  are  some  seven  miles  to  the  Narrows, 
and  it  is  well  worth  while  to  cover  them  be- 
fore sunset,  in  order  to  see  the  shadows  from 
the  western  hills  crawl  up  on  those  to  the 
east.  It  means  a  steady  and  industrious 
paddle.  I  had  consulted  the  map  as  to  where 
to  spend  the  night,  and  had  determined  upon 
the  clump  of  houses  denominated  "Hulett's;" 
for  the  size  of  the  asterisk  on  the  map  seemed 
to  import  an  inn  or  a  lodging-house,  and  sug- 
gested to  my  luxurious  mind  generous  ac- 
commodations, —  perhaps  Bass's  ale  for  din- 
ner, and  a  bath.  The  wind  blew  from  behind 
quite  fresh.  I  tucked  Montaigne  well  under 
his  blanket,  tilted  the  canoe  slightly  to  the 
side  I  paddled  on,  and  watched  the  gradual 
sinking  of  the  sun  and  the  little  splashes  of 
the  waves  as  they  ran  beside  me.  After  a 
paddle  of  a  number  of  miles  comes  fatigue  be- 
tween the  shoulder-blades ;  it  can  be  likened 
to  nothing  but  a  yoke  or  the  old  man  that 
sat  astraddle  of  Sindbad's  neck.  On  feel- 
ing this  yoke,  to  obtain  relief,  you  paddle  on 
the  other  side  of  the  boat.     A  better  remedy 


A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE  275 

is  to  take  a  swim.  The  wind  blew  fast  up 
the  Narrows,  and  I  was  thankful  it  came  to 
aid  me,  for  I  could  not  have  made  head 
against  it.  Spray  from  the  wave-tops  spat- 
tered into  the  canoe,  and  it  was  hard  to  keep 
it  steady.  It  was  as  if  the  bow  had  a  potent 
desire  to  look  round  at  me.  First  it  swerved 
to  right,  then  to  left,  and  after  trying  this 
succession  for  a  number  of  times,  lulhng  me 
into  routine  and  security,  after  a  turn  to  star- 
board it  made  believe  to  turn  as  usual  to 
port ;  but  just  when  my  paddle  was  ready  to 
meet  that  manoeuvre  it  swung  back  to  star- 
board, spattering  the  water  so  thick  that 
Montaigne  stood  well  in  need  of  his  blan- 
ket. Then  the  canoe  lay  limp,  as  if  it  were 
completely  exhausted  and  wholly  meritorious, 
like  Roland  in  the  market-place  at  Aix. 
Every  wave  tipped  it  to  and  fro,  while  I 
brandished  the  paddle  to  right  and  to  left 
to  keep  from  shipping  enough  water  to  sink 
me.  After  a  few  minutes,  like  a  puppy  that 
has  been  playing  dead  dog,  it  jumped  to 
what  would  have  been  its  keel  if  it  had  had 
one,  and  shot  on  over  the  water.  The  set- 
ting sun  shed  a  golden  brown  over  the  hill- 
tops to  the  east ;  under  the  shadow-line  the 


276         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

trees  passed  into  gloom,  and  haze  rose  from 
the  water's  edge  as  if  to  hide  a  troop  of 
Undines  coming  forth  from  their  bath.  To 
the  west,  against  the  ebbing  Hght,  the  hills 
stood  out  black,  and  the  little  islands  passed 
quickly  by  dotted  with  wooden  signs,  "  gov- 
ernment property,"  which  looked  in  the  dis- 
tance like  gray  tombstones.  I  went  ashore 
to  lie  down,  rest,  and  read  for  a  few  minutes 
before  dark.  It  may  be  the  trees,  the  wind 
moving  among  the  leaves,  the  jagged  out- 
hne  of  the  leaves  themselves,  or  merely  the 
smell  of  the  pines,  it  may  be  the  water  of 
the  lake  rippling  over  the  changing  colors 
of  the  stones,  it  may  be  the  sky  framed  by 
the  boughs  overhead,  or  it  may  be  all  in  com- 
bination, yet  by  them  and  in  them  a  man 
grows  wiser,  his  limitations  relax  their  ten- 
tacles and  loose  their  hold, 

"  While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony  and  the  deep  power  of  joy 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things." 

Nature  proffers  a  test  of  genuineness  for 
a  book  the  like  of  which  cannot  be  found 
elsewhere.  Out  of  doors,  amid  the  simpler 
life  of  earth,  motives  for  deception  fail, 
masks  are  cumbersome ;  disguises  grow  too 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  277 

heavy  to  wear,  and  are  transparent  at  that. 
By  some  strange  power,  the  inner  reaHty 
throws  its  shine  or  shadow  through  the 
man's  waistcoat,  through  the  book's  cover, 
over  the  outer  semblance.  The  pine  is  the 
clearest-eyed  tree  of  all  trees.  Its  needles  are 
so  many  magnets  pointing  towards  the  truth. 
Read  Cervantes  under  the  pme-tree,  and 
you  will  find  the  marks  of  Don  Quixote's 
heels  and  lance-butt  fresh  in  the  moss.  Read 
Dante  there  after  the  sun  has  set,  when  the 
light  begins  to  fail  and  the  chill  wind  rises, 
and  you  must  stop  your  ears  against  the 
"  sospiri,  pianti,  ed  alti  guai."  It  makes  one 
marvel  to  mark  how  sensitive  the  pine-tree 
is  to  its  company.  Its  tones,  its  shape,  its 
colors,  vary ;  it  draws  in  its  needles  and  pro- 
trudes them  as  if  it  fetched  deep  breaths.  Its 
voice  has  the  bass  notes  of  seriousness  and 
the  treble  of  a  boy's  merriment.  The  deep 
brown  resin  on  its  trunk  holds  the  light  as 
if  there  were  fire  within.  I  think  there  is 
a  strain  of  Clan  Alpine  in  us  all ;  we  owe 
allegiance  to  the  pine. 

Perhaps  Montaigne  does  not  sympathize 
with  great  emotions,  but  he  is  interested, 
deeply  interested,  in    the  drama  of   human 


278  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

existence  ;  he  has  the  instinct  of  dramatic 
f eeHng  ;  he  cares  not  only  for  the  free  play 
of  life,  but  also  for  a  particular  outcome  ;  he 
prefers  one  issue  to  another :  not  that  Virtue 
should  be  rewarded  and  Vice  punished,  but 
that  Prudence  should  be  happily  married  and 
Folly  be  pointed  at.  Common  Sense  is  the 
god  of  his  divinity. 

Pascal  complains,  "  Montaigne  parloit  trop 
de  soi."  A  grievous  fault  if  a  man  lack 
charm,  but  Montaigne  is  charming.  One 
would  not  that  young  Apollo  —  he  that  is 
killing  a  lizard  on  a  tree-stump  —  should 
wear  jacket  and  trousers.  Montaigne  makes 
no  pretense  of  self-effacement.  He  says,  I 
will  write  about  myself.  He  embroiders 
*"'  Ego  "  on  his  banner,  and  under  that  sign 
he  has  conquered.  If  men  dislike  apparent 
egotism,  let  them  leave  Montaigne.  Such 
men  should  vex  themselves  at  all  expression, 
for  all  fiction  and  art  are  ripe  with  person- 
ality. But  is  this  portrait  of  Montaigne  by 
himself  really  indicative  of  egotism  ?  For 
my  part,  it  is  as  if  Boswell  had  found  Dr. 
Johnson  in  himself.  Plere  is  a  man  with  a 
rare  gift  of  delineation.  He  sits  for  his  own 
portrait.     But  above  this  rare  gift  and  con- 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  279 

trolling  it  sits  the  indeterminate  soul ;  and 
as  essay  succeeds  essay,  this  soul,  uncertain  of 
itself,  half  mocking  his  readers,  half-mock- 
ing himself,  says.  Here  is  the  portrait  of 
Michel  de  Montaigne  ;  but  if  you  ask  me, 
reader,  if  it  be  like  me,  —  eh  bien,  que 
sgay-je  ? 

In  half  an  hour  I  was  in  the  canoe  again, 
laboring  vigorously.  After  a  paddle  in 
rough  waters  of  half  a  dozen  miles  a  man 
of  ordinary  brawn  begins  to  think  of  shore. 
The  sun  had  set,  the  western  light  had  faded 
and  gone.  The  stars  were  out.  Hulett's, 
with  its  cold  bath,  cool  ale,  and  hot  beef- 
steak, began  to  stand  out  very  clear  and  dis- 
tinct before  my  mind's  nose  and  eyes,  but 
there  were  no  physical  signs  of  it.  Hulett's 
has  a  post-office,  and  in  view  of  this  govern- 
mental footing  it  is,  to  my  thinking,  under  a 
sort  of  national  obligation  to  shine  out  and 
be  cheerful  to  all  wayfarers  by  land  and 
water.  I  kept  my  eyes  fixed  over  the  star- 
board bow.  The  miles  grew  longer ;  ordi- 
nary miles  became  nautical.  The  yoke  upon 
my  neck  would  not  budge,  shift  the  paddle 
as  I  might.  The  wind  dropped  down ;  the 
water  reflected  Jupiter  looking  out  through 


280         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

a  rift  in  the  clouds ;  the  widening  lake  lay 
flat  to  the  shore,  over  which  hung  a  black- 
ness that  I  took  to  be  the  outline  of  the  hills. 
The  monotony  of  the  stroke,  usually  so  fa- 
vorable to  reflection,  played  me  false.  The 
beat  of  the  paddle,  which  during  the  day  had 
had  a  steady  half-musical  splash,  and  had 
scattered  drops  like  the  tang  of  a  rhyme  at 
the  end  of  every  stroke,  made  no  sounds  but 
bath  —  bath  —  bath  —  Bass  —  Bass  —  Bass 
—  Hu  —  Hu  —  Hu  —  letts  —  letts  —  letts. 
But  no  lights ;  only  the  flat  water  and  the 
dark  outline  widening  out.  Montaigne  van- 
ished from  my  mind.  I  thought  of  nothing, 
and  repeated  to  myself  solemnly,  "  A  miss  is 
as  good  as  a  mile,  —  a  miss  is  as  good  as  a 
mile ; "  wondering  what  conclusion  I  could 
draw  from  this  premise.  Lights  at  last. 
First  one,  which  grew  and  expanded  and 
divided  in  two,  then  in  four,  and  other  hghts 
appeared  beyond.  In  a  few  minutes  I 
dragged  the  canoe  up  on  a  httle  beach, 
tipped  it  upside  down,  tucked  a  volume  of 
Montaigne  under  my  arm,  slung  my  night- 
pack  on  my  paddle,  and  approached  a  piazza 
and  voices.  I  skirted  these,  and  reached  a 
back  door.     A  low  growl  elicited  a  pleasant 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  281 

"Be  quiet,"  from  some  one  in  authority. 
The  light  streamed  from  the  opened  door. 
I  explained  my  desires,  and  received  a  short 
answer  that  this  house  took  lodgers,  but  that 
it  was  very  particular,  and  "  what 's  more, 
the  house  is  full."  I  guessed  that  my  ap- 
pearance made  against  me.  I  trusted  that 
my  speech  was  better  than  my  clothes,  and 
tried  to  remember  what  I  could  of  travelers 
in  distress.  I  felt  for  my  purse.  A  very 
worn  and  dingy  leather  met  my  fingers.  I 
withdrew  my  hand  and  talked  fast,  recalling 
how  Ulysses'  volubiHty  had  always  stood  him 
in  good  stead.  I  was  successful.  The  house 
expanded,  put  forth  an  extra  room ;  a  tub 
was  found,  also  chops  and  Milwaukee  beer. 
What  a  blessing  is  the  power  of  recuper- 
ation in  man  !  Dinner  done,  I  lighted  my 
pipe  and  fell  into  discourse  with  Montaigne. 
This  after-dinner  time  is  the  time  of  all  the 
day  to  sit  with  Montaigne.  The  mind  rests 
at  ease  upon  its  well-nourished  servant,  and 
lack  of  desire  begets  interest.  You  yield 
to  the  summons  of  bien-etre  ;  the  land  of 
socialists,  of  law,  of  railroads  and  time-tables, 
bows  and  withdraws,  leaving  you  alone  in 
the  world  of   leisure.     More  than  in  other 


282  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

worlds  Montaigne  is  at  home  here.  His 
voice  has  leisure  in  it.  The  titles  of  his  dis- 
courses, "  Of  Sadnesse,"  "  Of  Idlenesse," 
"  Of  Lyers,"  "  Whether  the  Captaine  of  a 
Place  Besieged  Oug^ht  to  Sallie  Forth  to  Par- 
lie,"  "  Of  the  Incommodity  of  Greatnesse," 
are  leisurely  ;  his  habit  is  leisurely.  Leisure 
sits  in  his  chair,  walks  when  he  walks,  and 
clips  out  anecdotes  from  Plutarch  for  him. 
Bordeaux,  during  his  mayoralty,  must  have 
abounded  in  trim  gardens.  Yet  there  is  no- 
thing lazy  here.  Jacques  Bonhomme  may 
be  lazy,  bourgeois  gentils-hommes  may  be 
lazy,  but  Montaigne  has  leisure.  As  you 
read  you  have  time  to  contemplate  and  re- 
flect ;  you  are  not  impatient  to  pass  through 
the  garnishment  of  his  essay  and  come  to 
the  pith,  in  which  you  believe  that  Mon- 
taigne will  most  truly  say  what  he  truly 
thinks.  Here  is  the  intellectual  charm  of 
the  book,  —  out  of  all  he  says  to  lay  hands 
upon  his  meaning  and  ascertain  his  attitude. 
The  problem  is  ever  present.  Is  there  an 
attempt  on  his  part,  by  an  assumed  self- 
revelation,  to  mislead,  or  does  the  difficulty 
lie  in  his  very  genuineness  and  simphcity  ? 
Does  his    belief   lie  concealed   in  his  anec- 


A   HOLIDAY   WITH   MONTAIGNE  283 

dotes,  or  is  it  set  forth  in  his  egotistical  sen- 
tences ?  Is  he  playing  his  game  with  you, 
or  only  with  himself?  To  my  mind,  it  is 
as  if  he  divided  himself  and  were  playing 
blind-man's  buff  ;  one  half  blindfolded,  grop- 
ing and  clutching,  the  other  half  uncaught 
still,  crying,  "  Here  I  am  !  "  The  same  im- 
pression is  left  whether  he  talks  of  himself 
or  suggests  theories  of  life  and  death. 
"  The  world  runnes  all  on  wheeles.  All 
things  therein  moove  without  intermission  ; 
yea,  the  earth,  the  rockes  of  Caucasus,  and 
the  Pyramides  of  -^gypt,  both  with  the 
publike  and  their  own  motion.  Constancy 
it  selfe  is  nothing  but  a  languishing  and 
wavering  dance.  I  cannot  settle  my  object ; 
it  goeth  so  unquietly  and  staggering,  with 
a  naturall  drunkennesse.  I  take  it  in  this 
plight,  as  it  is  at  th'  instant  I  ammuse  my 
selfe  about  it.  I  describe  not  the  essence  but 
the  passage ;  not  a  passage  from  age  to  age, 
or  as  the  people  reckon,  from  seaven  yeares 
to  seaven,  but  from  day  to  day,  from  min- 
ute to  minute.  My  history  must  be  fitted 
to  the  present."  Is  not  this  sense  of  uncer- 
tainty the  very  effect  Montaigne  wishes  to 
leave  upon  the  reader's  mind  ?     And    how 


284  A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE 

could  he  do  it  better  than  by  putting  forth  a 
portrait  of  himself,  saying,  This  is  according 
to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  and  refusing 
to  say,  This  is  a  true  picture  ?  If  a  man, 
set  to  the  task  of  describing  himself,  cannot 
accompHsh  it,  what  assurance  of  correspond- 
ence have  we  between  things  in  themselves 
and  our  knowledge,  which  for  the  most  is 
nothing  but  portraits  of  things  drawn  by 
others,  and  coming  to  us  through  a  succes- 
sion, each  copy  in  which  is  stamped  with  un- 
certainty? Has  he  not  left  this  portrait  of 
himself  as  the  great  exemplar  of  his  doc- 
trine ?  It  is  his  secret.  Whatever  it  be,  it 
is  his  humor,  his  chosen  method  of  expres- 
sion. I  believe  he  wishes  to  tell  the  reader 
about  himself,  but  cannot  be  sure  that  he  is 
showing  himself  as  he  is.  He  found  much 
pleasure  in  trying  to  explain  himself  by  say- 
ings and  stories  gathered  from  Plutarch. 
There  was  something  in  the  ingenuity  of  the 
method  that  gratified  him. 

There  could  be  no  better  evidence  of  the 
work  and  anxiety  spent  upon  these  essays 
than  that  given  by  a  comparison  of  the  two 
first  editions.  Montaigne  wrote  them  and 
rewrote  them.     One  can  feel  the  hesitation 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH   MONTAIGNE  285 

and  deliberation  with  which  he  chose  his 
words.  He  says  :  "  It  is  a  naturall,  simple, 
and  unaffected  speech  that  I  love,  so  written 
as  it  is  spoken,  and  such  upon  the  paper  as 
it  is  in  the  mouth,  a  pithie,  sinnowie,  full, 
strong,  compendious,  and  materiall  speech, 
not  so  delicate  and  affected  as  vehement  and 
piercing.  Rather  difficult  than  tedious,  void 
of  affectation,  free,  loose  and  bold ;  not  Pe- 
danticall,  nor  Frier-like,  nor  lawyer-like,  but 
rather  downe  right,  as  Suetonius  calleth  that 
of  Julius  Caesar."  The  French  men  of  let- 
ters in  the  seventeenth  century  thought  that 
Montaigne  had  no  art,  and  in  England, 
George  Savile,  the  distinguished  Marquis  of 
Halifax,  in  accepting  the  dedication  of  Cot- 
ton's translation,  says :  He  "  showeth  by  a 
generous  kind  of  negligence  that  he  did  not 
write  for  praise,  but  to  give  the  world  a  true 
picture  of  himself  and  of  mankind.  .  .  .  He 
hath  no  affection  to  set  himself  out,  and 
dependeth  wholly  upon  the  natural  force  of 
what  is  his  own  and  the  excellent  application 
of  what  he  borroweth."  With  great  respect 
let  it  be  said  that  this  is  a  mistake.  Mon- 
taigne had  great  art,  and  not  art  alone,  but 
arts  and  artifice  of  all  kinds.     Every  great 


286  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

book  is  a  work  of  art.  Every  book  tbat  sur- 
vives its  own  generation  is  a  work  of  art. 
No  one  knew  this  better  than  Montaigne. 
He  desired  immortality,  and  wrote  to  that 
end.  His  book  is  the  fruit  of  hard  labor,  of 
thought  deliberate,  considerate,  affectionate ; 
it  has  been  meditated  awake,  and  dreamed 
upon  asleep  ;  cogitated  walking,  talking, 
afoot,  and  on  horseback.  Nothing  in  it  has 
been  left  to  chance  and  the  minute.  The 
manuscript  at  breakfast  was  his  newspaper, 
after  dinner  his  cigar ;  out  of  doors  it  was 
in  his  pocket,  it  lay  under  his  pillow  at 
night. 

Sitting  in  his  Hbrary  in  the  third  story 
of  the  chateau's  tower,  pacing  up  and  down 
the  corridor  leading  to  it,  cantering  on  his 
comfortable  cob,  promenading  in  his  vege- 
table garden,  you  would  think  him  as  far 
and  safe  from  disturbance  as  from  the  vol- 
canoes in  the  moon.  Yet  when  he  betook 
himself  to  his  chateau  it  was  but  twelve 
months  before  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew. Leaguers  and  Huguenots,  men  with 
the  meanest  conception  of  leisure,  ramped 
about  the  land.  Montaigne  ate  and  slept 
in  his   unguarded  house  j    read  Seneca  and 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  287 

Jacques  Amyot ;  picked  up  sentences  on  the 
vanity  of  life  wherever  he  could  find  them, 
fixing  them  into  the  walls  of  his  library;  was 
amiable  to  his  wife  and  tended  his  daugh- 
ter's education,  while  ideahsm  and  turbulence 
ranged  abroad,  spilling  the  wines  of  France 
and  milk  of  Burgundy. 

For  a  book  to  succeed  in  surviving  its 
own  generation  is  a  strange  matter.  Force, 
says  science,  is  eternal ;  but  what  is  force  ? 
Calvin  lies  neglected  on  the  shelf,  while 
Michel  de  Montaigne  prospers  and  multi- 
plies. His  children,  the  essayists,  are  like 
sparrows  in  spring,  singing,  chattering,  chirp- 
ing everywhere. 

The  bed  at  S Point  that  night  was 

very  comfortable.  The  next  day  I  learned 
by  circuitous  questioning  —  for,  I  regret  to 
say,  I  had  let  my  hostess  understand,  or 
rather  I  had  not  corrected  her  misunder- 
standing, that  her  house  had  been  my  hope 
and  aim  all  the  weary  afternoon  —  that  I 
had  passed  Hulett's  in  the  dark.  Post-office, 
inn,  cottages,  boathouse,  all  abed  by  nine 
o'clock,  and  lamps  extinguished.  Never  was 
there  such  a  pitiful  economy  of  light. 

To  reach  the  northern  end  of  the  lake 


288  A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE 

needs  but  a  short  paddle.  At  that  point  is 
a  little  shop,  where  cider  and  ginger-pop  are 
sold.  The  proprietor  has  a  horse  and  cart, 
and  for  a  dollar  will  ferry  a  canoe  across  to 
Lake  Champlain.  The  Httle  river  that  con- 
nects the  two  lakes  is  impassable  on  account 
of  its  fall.  The  mills  make  a  poor  return 
for  the  turning  of  their  wheels  by  fouHng 
the  water.  All  the  way  to  Ticonderoga  the 
water  looks  like  slops;  there  is  little  plea- 
sure rowing  there.  I  passed  the  night  at 
Ticonderoga  Hotel,  and  left  at  dawn.  The 
day  began  to  break  as  I  launched  my  canoe. 
Near  the  shore  stood  a  clump  of  locust-trees, 
whose  branches  interarched,  dividing  the 
eastern  sky  into  sections  of  orange,  green, 
and  pink ;  their  trunks  black  as  ink  from 
raia  in  the  night,  save  on  the  edges,  where 
the  morning  colors  streaked  the  outhnes  with 
yellow  light.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  day 
before,  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees,  I  had 
wondered  whether  Montaigne  had  sympathy 
for  the  bigger  emotions  of  life.  In  the  early 
morning  I  knew  that  he  had  not.  The  risino; 
sun  is  imperious  in  its  requisition.  Under  its 
rays,  the  blood  flows  fast,  muscles  tighten, 
eyes   brighten,   cheeks  color,    sinews   swell. 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  289 

We  want  love,  ambition,  recklessness,  prayer, 
fasting,  perils,  and  scars.  Talk  to  us  then 
of 

"  Le  donne,  i  cavalier,  I'arme,  gli  amori, 
Le  cortesie,  I'audaci  imprese." 

Keep  Seneca  and  Epictetus  for  winter  even- 
ings, sewing  societies,  and  convalescence.  By 
ill  luck  it  happened  that  the  sun  was  not  an 
hour  high,  and  the  light  ran  over  the  ripples 
on  the  lake  as  if  creation  were  beginning, 
and  creation's  lord  were 

"  in  Werdelust 
Schaffender  Freude  nab," 

when  I  opened  Montaigne  and  read  that  he 
had  once  been  in  love.  "  Je  m'y  eschauday 
en  mon  enfance,  et  y  souffris  toutes  les  rages 
que  les  poetes  disent  advenir  a  ceux  qui  s'y 
laissent  aller  sans  ordre  et  sans  jugement." 
"  And  truly,  in  my  youth  I  suffered  much 
extremity  for  love ;  very  near  this."  0  Mon- 
taigne, 0  Polonius,  is  your  knowledge  of  life 
no  greater  than  of  these  matters  ? 

Montaigne  had  a  wife  who  had  no  part 
in  "  toutes  les  rages."  One  day,  when  he 
was  carried  home  to  all  appearances  dead, 
he  was  met  by  "  ceux  de  ma  famille,  avec 
les  oris  accoustumez  en  telles  choses."     He 


290  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

had  children.  They  died,  and  he  says:  "I 
lost  two  or  three  at  nurse,  if  not  without 
regret,  at  least  without  repining.  .  .  .  The 
generahty  of  men  think  it  a  great  blessing 
to  have  many  children ;  I,  and  some  others, 
think  it  as  happy  to  be  without  them."  The 
Huguenots  give  up  peace,  content,  worldly 
prosperity,  health,  and  friends  for  an  idea, 
and  they  vex  him  with  their  nonconformist 
nonsense.  Is  not  Paris  worth  a  mass?  Is 
not  peace  more  than  the  absence  of  branched 
candlesticks  ?  The  Catholics  die  for  love  of 
the  habit  of  ages,  for  tradition,  for  the  divin- 
ity in  asceticism  ;  and  Montaigne  professes 
to  be  of  their  faith,  he  too  has  their  reli- 
gion. He  is  surrounded  by  soldiers  ;  what  to 
him  are  the  big  wars,  the  plumed  troops,  the 
neighing  steed,  the  spirit-stirring  drum? 

I  put  Montaigne  hastily  back  under  his 
blanket  and  paddled  hard,  chanting  songs  of 
America.  That  night  I  reached  Westport. 
Lake  Champlain  is  too  big  for  a  canoe ;  it 
is  so  wide  that  unless  you  hug  the  indented 
shore  you  lose  the  pleasure  of  an  ever  shift- 
ing scene.  The  steamboats  shake  the  water 
most  immoderately.  The  only  way  to  en- 
counter their  swell  is  to  meet  it  bow  on,  and 


A  HOLIDAY   WITH  MONTAIGNE  291 

lift  the  boat  over  the  crest  of  each  roll  with 
a  downward  stroke  of  the  paddle.  At  West- 
port  I  got  aboard  the  "  Chateaugay,"  and  dis- 
embarked about  noon  at  a  point  on  the  east 
side  of  the  lake,  opposite  Plattsburg.  There 
I  had  a  very  good  dinner.  It  is  not  far 
thence  to  the  border.  The  lake  sluggishly 
ghdes  into  the  river  Richelieu.  Never  was  a 
less  appropriate  christening ;  for  a  meeker, 
duller,  feebler  river  it  were  hard  to  imagine. 
I  had  had  thoughts  of  a  lively  current  hur- 
rying me  along,  but  for  the  life  of  me  I 
could  not  tell  which  way  the  river  was  run- 
ning. Running,  I  say,  but  there  was  no 
more  run  than  Richelieu  in  this  river,  except 
down  a  certain  rocky  declivity,  several  miles 
long,  where  the  water,  much  against  its  will, 
gives  little  automatic,  jerky  jumps,  bumping 
along  till  it  reaches  level  again.  The  first 
night  on  the  river  I  passed  at  Rouse's  Point. 
Nothing  but  Montaigne  could  have  enabled 
me  to  free  myself  from  the  oppression  of 
the  dining-room,  bedroom,  guests,  and  hotel 
clerk.  None  but  Jeremiah  could  live  there. 
I  had  to  pay  four  dollars  for  the  discomforts 
of  the  night.  Extortion  should  be  resisted  ; 
but  "  there  is  nothing  I  hate  more  than  driv- 


292  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

ing  of  bargaines  :  it  is  a  meere  commerce  of 
dodging  and  impudencie.  After  an  hour's 
debating  and  paltring,  both  parties  will  goe 
from  their  words  and  oaths  for  the  getting 
or  saving  of  a  shilling." 

The  river  Richelieu  has  its  defects  and  its 
virtues.  Its  chief  defect,  and  a  monstrous 
one  when  days  are  hot  and  no  wind  blows, 
is  that  it  has  no  pool,  no  hollow,  no  recess, 
for  a  bath.  Bushes,  lily-pads,  water-docks, 
and  darnels,  all  manner  of  slimy  herbs  range 
in  unbroken  ranks  all  along  the  sides.  To 
take  a  jump  from  the  canoe  in  the  middle 
of  the  river  is  a  facile  feat,  "  sed  revocare 
gradum,  hie  labor  est."  I  poked  along  for 
hours,  examining  every  spot  that  looked  as 
if  a  pebbled  bottom  might  He  underneath, 
but  found  nothing,  until  I  saw  a  tiny  rivulet, 
so  little  that  it  would  take  ten  minutes  to  fill 
a  bathtub,  trickling  down  a  bank  steeper  than 
ordinary.  Here  the  oozy  greenery  parted 
respectfully  and  left  an  open  path  for  the 
little  brook  to  make  head  into  the  river. 
One  step  from  the  shore  the  bottom  sunk 
two  fathoms  deep.  I  tried  to  mark  the  spot 
on  my  map  for  the  sake  of  future  travelers ; 
but  there  was  no  indication  of  its  place ;  not 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  293 

even  the  little  house  across  the  river  was 
noted,  the  presence  o£  which,  perhaps,  should 
have  disturbed  me. 

The  virtues  of  the  Richelieu  are  those  of 
the  people  past  whose  houses  it  flows,  if  those 
aggregates  of  roofs,  Avails,  and  chimneys 
can  be  called  houses.  In  New  England  a 
house  implies  a  family,  —  father  and  mother, 
children,  chickens,  and  live  creatures  in  gen- 
eral. These  houses  have  bare  existence,  no 
more.  Not  a  man  is  to  be  seen.  The  flat 
fields  spread  far  away  on  either  side,  and 
there  are  signs  of  tillage,  also  pastures  ten- 
anted by  pigs.  Along  the  river  runs  a  road, 
and  at  intervals  of  half  a  mile  little  un- 
painted  houses  with  closed  doors  and  shut 
windows  stand  square-toed  upon  it.  Once 
or  twice  I  saw  a  woman  sewing  or  knitting 
on  the  doorstep,  her  back  turned ;  and  I 
would  paddle  nearer  and  strike  my  paddle  a 
little  more  noisily  for  the  sake  of  a  honjour, 
or  at  least  of  a  look  with  a  suggestion  of 
interest  or  human  curiosity.  The  backs  re- 
mained like  so  many  Ladies  of  Shalott  fear- 
ful of  consequences.  Perhaps  they  could 
see  me  in  a  mirror,  perhaps  there  had  been 
a  time  when  they  used  to  look ;  but  the  river 


294  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

had  been  so  unremunerative  that  now  no 
splash,  how  noisy  soever,  could  provoke  a 
turn  of  the  head.  It  was  the  land  of  Nod. 
Some  children  I  saw,  but  voiceless  children, 
playing  drowsy  games  or  sleepily  driving 
sleeping  pigs  afield.  Bitten  with  curiosity 
and  afraid  to  drink  the  river's  water,  I  went 
up  to  one  of  these  houses  at  noontide.  I 
made  a  half  circle  to  the  back,  and  found  a 
door  open.  In  the  kitchen  sat  two  women, 
an  old  man,  and  one  or  two  children ;  the 
women  busy  sewing,  the  old  man  braiding  a 
mat  from  long  strips  of  colored  cloth.  They 
all  looked  up  at  me  and  called  to  the  dog, 
which  had  shown  more  interest  in  me  than 
I  cared  for.  One  of  the  defects  of  the 
Richelieu  is  its  dogs.  Never  were  there  such 
dogs.  Dogs  by  courtesy,  for  they  have  legs, 
tail,  head,  ears,  and  if  you  go  near,  they 
growl,  their  hair  bristles,  and  their  tails  point 
stiffly  to  the  ground  ;  but  they  are  not  the 
dogs  honest  folks  are  wont  to  meet,  — -  mere 
gargoyles  cast  in  animated  clay.  They  fetch 
their  hide  from  long-haired  dogs,  Scotch 
perhaps,  their  tails  from  English  bulls,  their 
throats  from  hounds,  their  snouts  from  point- 
ers, their  forepaws  from   dachshunds,  their 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  295 

hind  legs  from  Spitz,  their  teeth  from  jack- 
als ;  their  braying,  barking,  snarling  voices 
are  all  their  own. 

"  Bonjour,"  said  I,  after  the  dog  had  lain 
down.  "  Voulez-vous  avoir  la  bonte  de  me 
donner  du  lait,  madame  ? "  The  children 
stared  as  before ;  the  women  looked  at  each 
other,  and  then  at  me.  I  repeated  my  ques- 
tion, hat  in  hand.  They  still  stared.  "  J'ai 
soif,"  I  continued ;  "  I'eau  du  fleuve  est 
d'une  telle  couleur  que  j'en  ai  peur."  A 
light  broke  over  the  old  man's  face  ;  one 
of  the  women  questioned  him.  "  II  veut  du 
lac."  "Ah,  du  lac,"  and  they  all  smiled, 
and  then  clouded  up,  looking  dubious.  "  Je 
veux  en  acheter,"  said  I  intelligently.  "  Ah, 
il  veut  en  acheter.  C'est  bien,"  and  the 
older  woman  shouted  for  Jacques.  A  round- 
faced  young  man  clambered  down  a  ladder 
from  the  attic  above  the  cattle-sheds,  and 
presently  brought  me  some  very  good  milk, 
with  which  I  filled  my  pail  and  departed. 
As  I  paddled  off  I  looked  back  to  see  who 
was  watching  me,  making  sure  that  at  least 
a  child  or  the  dog  would  have  sufficient  curi- 
osity to  see  the  last  of  me.  Not  a  sign  ;  the 
house  stared  indifferently  at  the  water. 


296         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

I  passed  one  night  at  St.  Johns,  which 
stands  at  the  southern  end  of  the  canal. 
The  canal  runs  for  twelve  miles  past  the 
Chambly  Rapids,  the  same  that  vexed  Samuel 
Champlain  when  he  made  his  first  voyage  of 
discovery,  coming  down  from  Mont  Real  to 
punish  the  Iroquois  and  to  see  what  he  could 
see.  The  lying  Algonquins,  in  their  eager- 
ness to  have  his  company,  had  told  him  that 
there  was  no  obstacle  for  the  canoes.  In 
this  town  I  lodofed  in  a  French  inn.  The 
host  was  large  and  portly,  —  somewhat  too 
much  given  to  looking  hke  the  innkeeper  in 
Dore's  "  Don  Quixote,"  but  a  very  good  fel- 
low. There  is  red  wine  in  his  cellar,  and  his 
wife  cooks  omelets  with  golden-brown  tops. 

Montaigne  is  sometimes  held  up  as  the 
type  of  the  man  of  the  world.  It  may  be 
that  he  is  such,  but  for  those  of  us  who  are 
somewhat  abashed  at  so  fine  a  title,  who  have 
been  taught  to  consider  a  man  of  the  world 
as  a  hireling  of  the  Prince  of  this  World,  and 
prefer  to  cope  with  a  man  of  our  hundred, 
the  name  may  carry  them  into  error.  It  is 
true  that  Montaiofne  went  to  Paris  while 
Catherine  de'  Medici  and  her  sons  held  their 
court,  and  to  Venice  while  the  fame  of  Le- 


A  HOLIDAY   WITH   MONTAIGNE  297 

panto  still  hung  over  the  Adriatic ;  but  he 
did  not  become  a  man  of  the  world,  suppos- 
ing that  traveling  to  the  worldly  cities  of  the 
world  can  so  fashion  a  man.  He  judges 
them  like  a  man  with  a  comfortable  home  in 
the  country.  "  Ces  belles  villes,  Venise  et 
Paris,  alterent  la  faveur  que  je  leur  porte,  par 
I'aigre  senteur,  I'une  de  son  marets,  I'autre  de 
sa  boue."  In  Venice  there  had  been  a  man 
of  the  world,  Pietro  Aretino,  called  Divine  by 
his  compatriots,  "  in  whom  except  it  be  an 
high-raised,  proudly  pufft,  mind-moving  and 
heart-danting  manner  of  speech,  yet  in  good 
sooth  more  than  ordinarie,  wittie  and  ingen- 
ious ;  but  so  new  fangled,  so  extravagant,  so 
fantasticall,  so  deep-laboured  ;  and  to  con- 
clud,  besides  the  eloquence,  which  be  it  as  it 
may  be,  I  cannot  perceive  anything  in  it,  be- 
yond or  exceeding  that  of  many  other  writers 
of  his  age,  much  lesse  that  it  in  any  sort  ap- 
proacheth  that  ancient  divinitie."  One  sus- 
pects that  it  was  not  lack  of  style  in  Aretino 
that  repelled  Montaigne,  but  the  superabun- 
dance of  his  disgusting  nature.  A  man  of 
the  world  does  not  have  likes  and  dishkes ; 
he  has  amusements  and  interests,  excitements 
even,  ennui,  tedium,  and  vacuity.    This  aver- 


298  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

sion  from  Aretino  betrays  Montaigne.  He 
■would  conceal  it  as  a  mere  pricking  of  his 
literary  thumbs,  but  the  truth  will  out.  There 
was  not  lurking  in  Montaigne's  closet  any 
skeleton  of  satiety.  That  is  the  mark  of  the 
man  of  the  world.  Not  abroad,  but  in  his 
chateau,  in  his  study  on  the  third  story  of 
the  tower,  is  Montaigne  at  his  ease.  The 
world  comes  to  him  there,  but  what  world  ? 
This  terrestrial  globe  peopled  with  ignorance 
and  knowledge,  custom  and  freedom,  "cap- 
tive good  "  and  "  captain  ill,"  where  Guise 
and  Navarre  break  the  peace  in  all  the  baili- 
wicks of  France?  By  no  means.  It  is  Plu- 
tarch's world,  a  novel  world  of  Greeks  and 
Latins,  more  like  Homer's  world  than  an- 
other, where  princes  and  heroes  perform 
their  exploits  from  some  Seaman der  to  the 
sea  and  back  again.  Plutarch  was  his  ency- 
clopsedia  of  interest.  The  man  of  the  world 
watches  the  face  of  the  world,  walking  to 
and  fro  to  see  what  there  may  be  abroad. 
Not  so  Montaigne.  He  cares  little  for  the 
contemporary  world  of  fact,  even  for  the 
city  of  Bordeaux,  his  charge.  Plutarch  for 
him ;  and  what  had  Plutarch  to  do  with  the 
harvests  and  vintages  of  Bordeaux,  with  Gas- 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  299 

con  deaths  and  Gascon  burials,  with  mar- 
riages and  children,  with  drawing  water  and 
baking  bread,  with  Ave  Marias  and  Sunday 
holidays  ?  The  heroic,  the  superhuman,  the 
accomplishment  of  aspirations  and  hopes,  — 
these  are  the  domain  of  Plutarch  and  also  of 
Romance.  Montaigne  would  not  have  liked 
to  be  dubbed  romantic,  and  clearly  he  was 
not ;  yet  the  glance  and  glitter  of  Romance 
caught  the  fancy  of  this  late  child  of  the  Re- 
naissance. It  is  said  that  the  ebb  tide  of  the 
new  birth  tumbled  him  over  in  its  waves  and 
left  him  lying  on  the  wet  sands  of  disillu- 
sion. If  this  be  so,  why  did  he  seek  and  get 
the  citizenship  of  Rome  ?  Was  it  not  that 
"  Civis  Romanus  sum  "  was  one  of  the  great 
permanent  realities  to  his  imagination?  Why 
is  it  that  he  fills  his  pages  with  the  romance 
of  Alexander,  Scipio,  and  Socrates  ?  Why 
do  the  records  of  fearlessness  facing  death, 
of  the  stoic  suffering  the  ills  of  life  with  a 
smile,  of  men  doing  deeds  that  surpass  the 
measure  of  a  man's  strength,  drag  him  to 
them?  He  will  not  have  his  heroes  belit- 
tled. "  Moreover,  our  judgments  are  but 
sick,  and  follow  after  the  corruption  of  our 
manners.     I  see  the  greater  part  of  the  wits 


300  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

of  my  time  puzzle  their  brains  to  draw  a 
cloud  over  the  glory  of  the  noble  and  gener- 
ous feats  of  old  —  grande  suhtilife."  The 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance  that  wrought  by 
land  and  sea  in  his  father's  time  still  lin- 
gered. How  could  a  man  of  letters  escape 
the  spirit  of  freedom  and  belief  in  possi- 
bility that  the  lack  of  geography  and  the 
babyhood  of  science  spread  thick  over  Eu- 
rope? To  the  west  lay  America  and  mys- 
tery. From  the  east  news  might  come  to- 
morrow that  the  men  of  Asia  were  masters 
of  Vienna.  From  the  spire  of  Bordeaux 
Cathedral  a  mayor  standing  a-tiptoe  might 
see  the  cut  of  Drake's  jib  as  he  sailed  up 
the  Gironde.  Romance  impregnated  the  air. 
Into  France,  reformation,  classic  lore,  the 
arts  of  Italy,  were  come  at  double-quick,  and 
to  the  south,  in  a  certain  place  in  La  Mancha, 
El  Senor  Quixada,  or  Quesada,  gave  himself 
over  to  reading  books  of  knight-errantry 
with  so  much  zeal  that  he  clean  forgot  to 
go  a-hunting,  and  even  to  attend  to  his  pro- 
perty ;  in  fact,  this  gentleman's  curiosity  and 
nonsense  in  this  matter  reached  such  a  pitch 
that  he  sold  many  an  acre  of  cornfields  in 
order  to  buy  books  of  knight-errantry.    Mon- 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  301 

taigne  had  too  much  of  Polonius  to  behave 
in  that  way  ;  nevertheless,  the  desire  to  reach 
out  beyond  the  chalk -Hne  drawn  by  the 
senses  was  potent  with  him.  He  goes  round 
and  round  a  subject  not  merely  to  show  how 
no  progress  can  be  made  towards  discover- 
ing the  inner  reality  of  it,  but  partly  to  see 
if  he  cannot  discover  something.  The  make- 
weights that  kept  him  steadfast  in  sobriety 
were  his  curiosity  and  his  wit.  Wit  is  the 
spirit  that  ties  a  man's  leg.  It  cannot  abide 
half-lights,  shadows,  and  darkness.  Wit  must 
deal  with  the  immediate,  with  the  plat  of 
groimd  round  which  it  paces  its  intellectual 
circuit.  Wit  has  a  lanthorn,  which  sheds 
its  beams,  reveaHng  unexpected  knowledge, 
but  it  turns  the  twilight  beyond  that  circle 
of  light  into  darkness.  Ariosto's  wit  makes 
his  verses,  but  bars  him  from  poetry.  Spen- 
ser's lack  of  wit  allows  him  to  make  poetry, 
but  shuts  him  out  from  readers.  Shake- 
speare and  Cervantes  were  great  enough  to 
dominate  their  wit,  but  Montaigne's  clasped 
hands  with  his  curiosity,  and  the  two  led  him 
as  the  dog  leads  a  blind  man.  The  instinct 
in  them  has  guided  hun  to  immortality.  In 
curiosity  Montaigne  was  of  his  father's  time. 


302  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

Curiosity  was  one  of  the  makers  of  the  Ee- 
naissance.  It  has  not  the  graces  of  resigna- 
tion and  of  contemj)lation,  it  lacks  the  self- 
respect  of  belief  and  the  self-sufficiency  of 
unbelief,  but  it  accomplishes  more  than  they, 
it  must  be  reckoned  with.  It  is  the  force 
underlying  science.  It  is  the  grand  vizier  of 
change.  Curiosity  whispered  to  Columbus, 
plucked  Gahleo  by  the  sleeve,  and  shook  the 
apple  off  Newton's  apple-tree.  Montaigne 
was  a  curious  man.  The  English  language 
lacks  nicety  in  not  having  two  words  for  the 
two  halves  of  curiosity  :  one  for  Francis  Ba- 
con, one  for  my  landlady's  neighbor,  she  that 
lives  behind  us  to  the  left,  whose  window 
commands  our  yard.  But  if  there  were, 
could  we  apply  the  nobler  adjective  to  Mon- 
taigne ?  Does  he  want  to  know,  like  Ulysses  ? 
Will  he  to  ocean  in  an  open  boat, 

"  yearning  In  desire 
To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star  "  ? 

Or  does  he  rest  content  with  the  ordinary 
wares  of  knowledge,  sold  in  market  overt, 
and  is  he  satisfied  with  ruminating  over 
them,  hands  in  pockets,  leaving  others  to 
buy  and  use? 

The  placidity  of  his  life  is  another  proof 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  303 

of  his  fondness  for  romance.  A  man  of  the 
world  must  go  out  into  the  world  to  seek  the 
motion  and  the  tap-tap  of  the  free  play  of 
life,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  physical  needs  of 
sight  and  sound.  The  man  of  imagination 
and  romance  sits  in  his  study,  and  heroes, 
heroines,  gryphons,  and  Ganelons  come  hud- 
dling about  his  chair.  To  Montaigne  the 
world  came  through  his  books,  yet  he  is  not 
a  representative  scholar.  His  companionship 
with  books  is  based  on  friendship,  not  on 
desire  for  knowledge.  There  is  no  latent 
Faust  in  him.  He  is  a  man  of  the  Hbrary. 
Of  all  great  men  of  letters,  more  than  the 
rest  he  has  his  writing-table  backgrounded 
and  shut  in  by  bookshelves.  Cicero  is  a  man 
of  the  forum,  Voltaire  of  the  theatre,  Walter 
Scott  of  hill  and  dale.  Montaigne  is  at  home 
with  books,  not  with  men.  Of  the  former, 
his  cronies  are  Plutarch,  Seneca,  Cicero, 
Horace.  He  cares  not  so  much  about  states 
and  policies  as  he  does  how  states  long  dead 
and  policies  forgotten  appear  to  philosopher 
and  poet.  He  is  indifferent  to  morals  as 
affecting  the  happiness  of  men,  and  eagerly 
interested  in  them  as  a  topic  of  conversation, 
as  an  occasion   whereby  opinion  may  take 


304  A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

the  foils  against  opinion,  and  thought  click 
against  its  fellow.  Nor  is  he  fond  of  poetry 
except  as  it  serves  to  embroider  his  mono- 
logues. Life  itself  interests  him  chiefly  as  a 
matter  for  talk.  And  how  good  his  talk  is, 
how  excellent  his  speech !  With  his  heart, 
or  what  of  heart  he  had,  in  his  books,  it 
is  natural  that  he  wished  to  appear  among 
men  of  letters  in  his  best  array.  He  was 
ambitious,  when  men  thenceforward  should 
read  Cicero  and  Seneca,  that  Michel  de  Mon- 
taigne should  be  read  too,  and  that  his  style 
should  stand  beside  theirs,  uncovered,  par 
inter  pares.  Sainte-Beuve,  making  mention 
of  Calvin,  Rabelais,  Pascal,  and  Montaigne, 
says  that  Rabelais  and  Montaigne  are  poets. 
But  Montaigne  clearly  does  not  fill  an  Eng- 
lish-speaking man's  conception  of  a  poet.  It 
must  be,  I  think,  that  Sainte-Beuve  was  un- 
der the  influence  of  Montaigne's  language, 
and  therefore  called  him  so.  That  was  nat- 
ural. The  French  tongue  at  that  time  had 
a  strong  element  of  poetry ;  it  bore  deep 
marks  of  its  originals.  It  had  not  yet  come 
under  the  complete  dominion  of  narrow  pros- 
ody and  syntax.  The  words  had  in  a  mea- 
sure the  simplicity,  the  indecision  of  outline, 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  305 

the  rude  strength,  of  the  Teutonic  languages. 
Old  English  words,  at  times,  like  conspira- 
tors, come  fraught  with  greater  meaning 
that  they  are  indistinct ;  their  shadows  fall 
about  them,  hiding  their  feet ;  they  gHde 
into  your  presence  :  so  it  is  with  Montaigne's 
words.  Nowadays  French  words  have  evolu- 
tions and  drills,  accepted  manoeuvres  ;  they 
savor  of  mathematics  and  bloodless  things. 
The  French  language  of  to-day  has  altered 
its  sixteenth-century  habit  more  than  Eng- 
lish has  ;  no  Bible  arrested  its  development. 
Montaigne  has  the  simplicity,  the  directness 
of  expression  and  exposition,  of  the  men  of 
to-day,  but  the  poetical  quality  that  lurks  in 
his  words  and  phrases  they  have  not  inher- 
ited. 

At  St.  Johns  is  the  custom  house,  but  the 
office  was  locked  at  a  reasonable  hour  in  the 
morning  for  calling,  and  I  felt  under  no  fur- 
ther obligations  towards  the  Canadian  gov- 
ernment. Here  also  is  the  place  to  pay  the 
canal  toll,  and  in  exchange  receive  a  ticket 
which  gives  permission  to  pass  all  the  locks. 
The  toll-taker  wrote  me  out  a  permit,  full 
of  dignity,  authorizing  the  ship  Sickle-Fin, 
weighing  not  more   than  one  ton,  whereof 


306  A  HOLIDAY  WITH   MONTAIGNE 

Captain ,  naming  me,  was  the  master, 

laden  with  ballast  (Montaigne),  to  travel  free 
through  all  the  locks. 

It  is  the  every-day  humanity  in  Montaigne 
that  binds  us  to  him.  It  is  his  lack  of  capa- 
city for  self-sacrifice,  his  inability  to  believe, 
his  ignorance  of  love,  his  innocence  of  scorn. 
These  are  our  common  property.  He  likes 
the  comforts  that  we  like  ;  he  values  secur- 
ity, ease,  simplicity,  a  fire  on  the  hearth,  a 
book  in  the  hand,  fresh  water  in  summer. 
He  never  makes  us  ashamed. 

The  next  night  I  passed  at  Belceil.  Here 
I  was  the  sport  of  indecision  for  an  hour, 
unable  to  make  up  my  mind  where  to  pass 
the  night.  There  were  three  hotels,  two  on 
my  left,  one  on  my  right.  While  looking  at 
each  in  turn,  I  resolved  to  go  to  one  of  the 
other  two.  Finally  I  made  my  choice.  I 
selected  a  little  wooden  house,  with  a  little 
bar-room,  a  little  dining-room,  and  a  very 
tiny  larder,  and  beer  of  a  despicable  quality. 
I  had  ham  and  eggs  for  dinner,  —  "  Si  Ton 
avait  su  que  Monsieur  allait  venir,  on  aurait 
pu  avoir  un  bifteck,"  —  ham  and  eggs  for 
breakfast,  and  an  offer  to  put  up  ham  and 
eggs  for  my  lunch. 


A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE  307 

The  villages  along  the  river  are  all  on  one 
pattern.  In  the  centre  is  a  very  large  church, 
so  big  that  you  see  it  far  off,  long  before 
there  is  any  other  indication  of  human  life. 
The  church  is  built  on  a  rectangle,  with  a 
pointed  roof  and  a  tall  spire  tipped  with  a 
weather-cock.  The  roof  is  covered  with  tin, 
unpainted,  which  does  not  rust,  perhaps  be- 
cause the  air  is  so  dry,  and  flashes  very 
gaudily  in  the  sun.  Grouped  about  the 
church  are  large  red  brick  buildings  facing 
a  little  green.  These  are  the  houses  for 
priests  and  nuns,  with  the  offices  for  parish 
work.  Images  of  the  Virgin  and  saints 
stand  about.  The  grass-plot  and  the  paths 
are  well  kept,  and  were  it  not  that  the  rest 
of  the  village  does  not  seem  to  share  in  this 
prosperity,  it  would  be  a  very  pleasant  sight. 
At  St.  Ours,  where  I  passed  the  next  night, 
there  was  an  attractive  house,  shut  in  by  a 
garden  and  well  protected  by  trees,  that  had 
the  look  of  accumulated  savings ;  but  in  gen- 
eral there  was  Httle  sign  of  the  comforts  so 
often  seen  in  the  small  manufacturing  vil- 
lages of  New  England,  —  no  sound  of  a 
lawn-mower,  no  croquet,  no  tennis. 

The   river  Richelieu   joins  the   St.  Law- 


308         A  HOLIDAY  WITH  MONTAIGNE 

rence  at  Sorel.  There  I  found  that  the  St. 
Lawrence  is  too  big  and  strong  for  a  canoe, 
at  least  when  paddled  in  a  jogging,  unso- 
phisticated way.  I  put  my  canoe  aboard  the 
steamer,  and  bought  a  ticket  for  Quebec. 
In  my  stuffy  cabin,  under  the  dim  gaslight, 
I  admired  Montaigne's  imperturbability  and 
his  ceaseless  interest  in  things. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 


Twenty  years  ago,  at  Harvard  College, 
in  the  rooms  of  all  students  of  certain  social 
pretensions  who  affected  books,  you  were 
sure  to  see  on  the  most  conspicuous  shelf,  m 
green  and  gold  or  in  half  calf,  the  works  of 
William  Makepeace  Thackeray.  The  name, 
boldly  printed,  greeted  you  as  you  entered 
the  door,  and  served,  together  with  sundry 
red-sealed  certificates  and  beribboned  silver 
medals,  to  inform  you  of  the  general  respec- 
tability and  gentility  of  your  host.  Of  a 
Sunday  morning,  this  student  was  likely  to 
be  discovered  complacent  over  the  "  Book  of 
Snobs  "  or  serious  over  "  Vanity  Fair." 

Pubhc  opinion  went  that  Thackeray  was 
the  novelist  of  gentlemen  and  for  gentlemen ; 
that  Dickens  was  undoubtedly  strong,  but  he 
had  not  had  the  privilege  of  knowing  and 
of  delineating  the  things  which  were  adapted 
to  interest  the  most  select  of  Harvard  under- 


312         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

graduates.  In  every  fold  there  are  some  to 
lower  the  general  standard  of  critical  excel- 
lence ;  there  were  some  partisans  of  Dickens. 
They  were  judged,  as  minorities  are,  found 
guilty  of  running  counter  to  accepted  opin- 
ions, and  outlawed  from  further  literary  criti- 
cism. 

These  Harvard  critics  did  not  make  for 
themselves  this  opinion  of  Thackeray ;  they 
brought  it  with  them  from  home. 

We  suppose  that  parents,  what  time  their 
son  started  in  the  world  on  the  first  path 
which  diverged  from  theirs,  deemed  that 
they  were  equipping  him  with  the  best  mas- 
ter to  teach  him  concerning  the  ways  of  that 
world.  Theirs  was  the  old  lack  of  faith, 
so  common  to  the  fearful ;  they  sought  to 
guard  their  son  from  the  world  by  pointing 
out  to  him  its  vanity,  its  folly,  its  emptiness. 
"  Oh,  if  he  shall  only  know  what  the  world 
is,"  they  thought, ''  he  will  escape  its  evils  to 
come."  So  they  gave  him  Thackeray,  and 
wrote  him  long  letters  on  idleness  and  vice. 
His  bookshelves  and  his  inner  pockets  thus 
encumbered,  the  youth  found  Harvard  Col- 
lege a  miniature  of  the  world  of  which  he 
had   been   warned.      There   were   materials 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         313 

enough  for  such  a  conclusion.  A  seeker 
will  find  what  he  goes  forth  to  seek.  The 
youth  learned  his  Thackeray  well,  spent  four 
years  enjoying  his  little  Vanity  Fair,  and 
then  departed  from  Cambridge  to  help  build 
up  the  larger  world  of  Vanity  which  shows  so 
fine  in  America  to-day. 

There  is  no  phenomenon  so  interesting  as 
the  unconscious  labor  of  boys  and  men  over 
the  task  of  shaping,  hewing,  whittling,  and 
moulding  the  world  into  accord  with  their 
anticipations.  All  lend  helping  hands  to  the 
great  master  implement,  public  expectation. 
A  young  fellow  goes  to  college,  and  joins  a 
group  of  a  dozen  others.  Brown,  the  rake, 
thinks,  "  Here 's  a  Lothario  who  will  sup  at 
Dame  Quickly 's  with  me  ;  "  Smith,  the  boxer, 
says,  "  A  quick  eye,  —  I  '11  make  a  boxer  of 
him ;  "  Jones,  who  translates  Homer  for  the 
group,  sees  rhythm  and  Theocritus  in  the 
newcomer's  curly  hair;  Robinson,  the  phi- 
losopher, feels  a  fellow  Hegehan.  These 
rival  expectations  leap  out  to  meet  the  stran- 
ger ;  they  struggle  among  themselves.  Of 
the  students,  some  agree  with  Brown,  some 
with  Smith,  others  with  Robinson  or  Jones. 
The  sturdiest  of  these  expectations  chokes 


314         SOME  ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY 

out  the  others  and  survives.  After  a  short 
time  —  our  young  fellow  yet  entirely  undis- 
covered—  a  strong  current  of  unanimous 
expectation  has  decided  that  he  shall  be  a 
boxer.  All  obstacles  to  the  execution  of  this 
judgment  are  taken  away,  and  moral  earth- 
works are  quickly  thrown  up,  guarding  him 
from  Brown,  Jones,  and  Robinson.  Expec- 
tation seats  him  beside  Smith  ;  expectation 
turns  the  conversation  upon  champions  of 
the  ring  ;  expectation  draws  the  gloves  upon 
his  fists ;  it  offers  him  no  Eastcheap,  no 
Theocritus,  no  Hegel.  The  youth  takes  box- 
ing lessons  ;  soon  he  learns  the  language  of 
the  fraternity ;  he  walks,  runs,  avoids  mince 
pies,  eschews  books,  and  with  a  single  eye 
looks  forward  to  a  bout  in  Hemenway  Gym- 
nasium. Thus  the  tricksy  spirit  expectation 
shapes  the  destinies  of  common  humankind. 
Thus  do  parents  begin  to  expect  that  their  son 
will  see  the  world  with  theii*  own  and  Thack- 
eray's beam-troubled  eyes ;  they  insist  that 
he  shall,  and  in  due  time  he  does. 

Once  convince  a  young  man  that  Thack- 
eray's world  is  the  real  world,  that  vulgarity, 
meanness,  trickery,  and  fraud  abound,  and 
you  put  him  in  a  yoke  from  which  he  shall 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         315 

never  free  himself.  This  is  the  yoke  of  base 
expectation.  This  is  what  is  known  in  Scrip- 
ture as  "  the  workl ;  "  it  is  the  habit  of  screw- 
ing up  the  eyes  and  squinting  in  order  to  see 
unworthiness,  baseness,  vice,  and  wickedness ; 
it  is  a  creeping  bhndness  to  nobler  things. 
The  weapon  against  the  world  is,  as  of  old, 
to  use  a  word  of  great  associations,  faith. 
Faith  is  nothing  but  noble  expectation,  and 
all  education  should  be  to  supplant  base  ex- 
pectation by  noble  expectation.  What  is  the 
human  world  in  which  we  live  but  a  mighty 
mass  of  sensitive  matter,  highly  susceptible 
to  the  great  force  of  human  expectation, 
which  flows  about  it  Hke  an  ever  shifting 
Gulf  Stream,  now  warming  and  prospering 
noble  people,  and  then  wantonly  comforting 
the  unworthy  ? 

Feeble  folk  that  we  are,  we  have  in  this 
power  of  creation  an  element  of  divinity  in 
us.  Our  expectations  hover  about  like  life- 
giving  agencies.  We  are  conscious  that  our 
hopes  and  our  fears  are  at  work  all  the  time 
helping  the  oncoming  of  that  which  we  hope 
or  fear.  The  future  is  like  a  new  born  babe 
stretching  out  its  arms  to  the  stronger.  It 
may  be  that  this  power  in  us  is  weak,  inter- 


316         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

mittent,  often  pitiably  feeble ;  but  now  and 
again  comes  a  man  with  a  larger  measure  of 
divine  life,  and  his  great  expectations  pass 
into  deeds.  Before  every  Trafalgar  first 
comes  an  expectation  that  duty  will  be  done. 

Thackeray  has  no  faith ;  he  does  not  enter- 
tain high  expectations.  His  characters  do 
shameless  things,  and  Thackeray  says  to  the 
reader,  "  Be  not  surprised,  injured-seeming 
friend ;  you  would  have  done  the  Hke  under 
the  like  temptation."  At  first  you  contra- 
dict, you  resent ;  but  httle  by  little  Thacke- 
ray's opinion  of  you  inoculates  you  ;  the  virus 
takes ;  you  lose  your  conviction  that  you 
would  have  acted  differently  ;  you  concede 
that  such  conduct  was  not  impossible,  even 
for  you,  —  no,  nor  improbable,  —  and,  on 
the  whole,  after  reflection,  that  the  conduct 
was  excusable,  was  good  enough,  was  justi- 
fied, was  inevitable,  was  right,  was  scrupu- 
lously right,  and  only  a  Don  Quixote  would 
have  acted  otherwise. 

Nothing  sickens  and  dies  so  quickly  as 
noble  expectation.  Luxury,  comfort,  cus- 
tom, the  ennui  of  hourly  exertion,  the  dint 
of  disappointment,  assail  it  unceasingly :  if  a 
man  of  ten  talents,  like  Thackeray,  joins  the 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         317 

assailants,  is  it  not  just  that  admiration  of 
hini  should  be  confined  to  those  who  are 
wining  to  admire  talents,  irrespective  of  the 
use  to  which  they  are  put  ? 

II 

England  has  found  it  hard  to  bring  forth 
men  of  faith.  In  the  great  days  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  a  number  of  uniting  causes  pro- 
duced an  emotional  excitement  which  lifted 
Enghshmen  and  Englishwomen  to  such  a 
height  that  Shakespeare  saw  Othello,  Ham- 
let, Brutus,  Coriolanus,  Miranda,  CordeHa. 
There  was  the  material  stimulus  of  commerce 
with  strange  countries,  the  prick  of  money  ; 
there  was  this  curious  earth,  inviting  wooers ; 
there  was  the  goad  of  conscience,  troubled 
to  renounce  the  religion  of  old  ;  there  was 
the  danger  of  foreign  conquerors  ;  there 
was  manly  devotion  to  a  Virgin  Queen. 
England  roused  herself,  and,  "  like  a  dew- 
drop  from  the  lion's  mane,"  shook  off  the 
trammels  of  petty  interests,  of  vulgar  self- 
seeking,  and  presented  to  her  poet  great 
sights  of  human  nobility.  Not  that  the 
moral  elevation  of  a  nation  is  very  much 
higher  at  one  time  than  at  another^  but  a 


318         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

little  swelling  of  noble  desires  so  breaks 
the  ice  of  custom  that  a  poet  must  see  the 
clearer  waters  which  lie  beneath.  If  Shake- 
speare were  aHve  to-day,  we  doubt  not  that 
he  would  tell  of  new  Othellos,  new  Cordelias ; 
but  it  was  easier  for  him  then  than  it  would 
be  now,  or  how  could  such  a  host  of  noble 
men  and  women  people  his  pages? 

Since  that  time  England  has  been  pros- 
perous and  comfortable  ;  and  as  her  comfort 
and  prosperity  have  increased  she  has  drifted 
further  and  further  from  a  great  acceptance 
of  the  world.  Dryden  and  his  group.  Field- 
ing, Sheridan,  men  of  talents  in  their  differ- 
ent generations,  have  succeeded,  who  con- 
template themselves,  and,  expecting  to  find 
the  world  a  fit  place  for  them  to  Hve  in,  have 
helped  to  render  it  so. 

A  hundred  years  ago  England  shook  her- 
self free  from  the  dominion  of  vulgar  men. 
In  France,  the  triple  burden  of  church,  mon- 
arch, and  nobility,  the  prohibition  of  thought, 
the  injustice  of  power,  had  lain  like  mill- 
stones on  the  people  ;  each  individual  had 
borne  his  own  burden,  but  one  after  another 
each  saw  that  not  he  alone  groaned  and 
sweated,  but  his  brothers  also.     The  fardel  a 


SOME   ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY         319 

man  can  bear  by  himself  he  can  no  longer 
carry  when  he  sees  an  endless  line  of  other 
men  weio:hted  down  and  stasfirerino".  Sig^ht 
of  injustice  to  others  made  each  individual  in 
France  throw  ofiP  his  own  yoke ;  and  the  most 
exiUtant  cry  of  justice,  of  brotherly  love,  ever 
heard,  was  raised.  No  country  lives  alone. 
French  passion  flushed  to  England.  Eng- 
lishmen were  roused  :  some  were  for  liberty  ; 
others  saw  their  dull  old  homes  and  habits 
transfigured  in  the  blaze  of  new  ideas.  Noble 
Republicans  bred  noble  Tories.  Everything 
was  ennobled  ;  babies  looked  more  beautiful  to 
their  mothers  ;  Virgil  interested  schoolboys ; 
ragamuffins  and  ploughboys  felt  strange  dis- 
quiet as  they  heard  the  words  ''  liberty," 
"  country,"  "  brotherhood,"  "  home."  This 
shock  and  counter-shock  prepared  the  way  for 
the  great  poets  of  that  time,  and  made  Wal- 
ter Scott  possible.  Scott  had  faith  ;  he  saw 
a  noble  world.  But  the  idealism  of  France 
passed  away,  its  glow  faded  from  the  English 
cliffs ;  danger  was  locked  up  in  St.  Helena, 
and  prosperity  and  comfort,  like  Gog  and 
Magog,  stalked  through  England. 

Thackeray    was    bred    when    Englishmen 
were  forsaking  "  swords  for  ledgers,"  and  de- 


320         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

serting  "  the  student's  bower  for  gold."  His 
father  died  when  he  was  very  young.  His 
mother  married  for  her  second  husband  an 
Indian  of&cer,  and  Thackeray  was  sent  to 
school  in  England. 

In  a  new  biographical  edition  of  Thacke- 
ray's works  which  Messrs.  Harper  &  Brothers 
are  publishing,  Mrs.  Ritchie  has  written  brief 
memories  of  her  father  at  the  beginning  of 
each  volume,  with  special  relation  to  its  con- 
tents. These  memories  are  done  with  filial 
affection.  Thackeray's  kindness,  his  tender- 
ness, his  sympathetic  nature,  are  written  large 
on  every  page.  He  has  many  virtues.  He 
dislikes  vice,  drunkenness,  betrayal  of  women, 
pettifogging,  huckstering,  lying,  cheating, 
knavery,  the  annoyance  and  tomfoolery  of 
social  distinctions.  He  would  like  to  leave 
the  world  better  than  he  found  it,  but 
he  cannot  see.  Pettiness,  the  vulgarity  of 
money,  the  admiration  of  mean  things,  hang 
before  him  like  a  curtain  at  the  theatre.  Ro- 
meo may  be  on  fire,  Hotspur  leap  for  the 
moon,  Othello  stab  lago,  Lear  die  in  Corde- 
lia's lap ;  but  the  sixteenth  of  an  inch  of 
frieze  and  fustian  keeps  it  all  from  him. 

At  nineteen  Thackeray  spent  a  winter  at 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         321 

Weimar.  He  soon  writes  to  his  mother  of 
Goethe  as  "  the  great  lion  of  Weimar."  He 
is  not  eager  to  possess  the  great  measures  of 
life.  He  is  not  sensitive  to  Goethe,  but  to 
the  court  of  Pumpernickel.  He  wishes  he 
were  a  cornet  in  Sir  John  Kennaway's  yeo- 
manry, that  he  might  wear  the  yeoman's 
dress.  "  A  yeomanry  dress  is  always  a  hand- 
some and  respectable  one." 

In  1838,  when  in  Paris,  he  writes  :  "  I  have 
just  come  from  seeing  '  Marion  Delorme,'  the 
tragedy  of  Victor  Hugo,  and  am  so  sickened 
and  disgusted  with  the  horrid  piece  that  I 
have  hardly  heart  to  write."  He  did  not 
look  through  pain  and  extravagance  into  the 
noble  passion  of  the  play.  He  lived  in  a 
moral  Pumpernickel  where  the  ideal  is  kept 
outside  the  town  gates.  And  he  has  de- 
scribed his  home  with  the  vividness  and 
vigor  of  complete  comprehension.  Never 
has  a  period  had  so  accomplished  an  his- 
torian. The  bourgeoisie  have  their  epic  in 
"  Vanity  Fair." 

This  book  reflects  Thackeray's  intellectual 
image  in  his  prime  ;  it  is  his  first  great  novel, 
and  is  filled  with  the  most  vivid  and  enduring 
of  his  beliefs  and  convictions.     There  are  in 


322         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

it  a  vigor,  an  independence,  and  a  sense  of 
power  tliat  come  when  a  man  faces  his  best 
opportunity.  Into  it  Thackeray  has  put  what 
he  deemed  the  truest  experiences  of  his  life. 
"  The  Newcomes  "  and  "  Pendennis  "  are  but 
sequels.  "  The  Newcomes  "  is  the  story  of 
his  stepfather,  in  Vanity  Fair ;  "  Pendennis," 
that  of  Thackeray  himself  and  his  mother 
wandering  in  its  outskirts.  There  is  this 
one  family  of  nice  people,  gathered  into  an 
ark  as  it  were,  floating  over  the  muddy  wa- 
ters. Thackeray  was  able  to  see  that  his 
immediate  family  were  not  rogues  ;  he  was 
also  able  to  draw  a  most  noble  gentleman, 
Henry  Esmond,  by  the  help  of  the  idealizing 
lens  of  a  hundred  odd  years ;  but  the  world 
he  thought  he  saw  about  him  is  the  world 
of  "  Vanity  Fair." 

Thackeray  had  so  many  fine  qualities  that 
one  cannot  but  feel  badly  to  see  him  in  such 
a  place.  Had  his  virtues  —  his  kindness, 
his  tenderness,  his  charm,  his  capacity  for 
affection  —  been  energetic  enough  to  domi- 
nate his  entire  character,  he  would  have  lived 
among  far  different  scenes  ;  his  readers  would 
have  beheld  him  brooding  over  a  world  where 
passion  may  be  very  noble  and  very  base. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         323 

happy  that  virtue,  in  the  strong  or  in  the 
"weak,  may  sometimes  be  found  indomitable, 
and  deeply  serious,  deeply  conscious  of  that 
inner  essence  in  men,  which  at  times  has  per- 
suaded them  to  believe  themselves  children 
of  God.  Was  it  Thackeray's  fault  that  this 
was  not  to  be  ?  Or  did  he  suffer  the  inci- 
dental misfortunes  which  large  causes  bring 
to  individuals  as  they  follow  their  own  re- 
gardless paths  ? 

Ill 

Thackeray  is  the  poet  of  respectability. 
His  working  time  stretches  from  the  Reform 
Act  almost  to  the  death  of  Lord  Palmerston. 
He  chronicles  the  contemporary  life  of  a 
rich,  money-getting  generation  of  merchants 
and  manufacturers,  lifted  into  sudden  impor- 
tance in  the  national  life  by  steamboats  and 
railroads,  by  machinery  for  spinning,  weav- 
ing, mining,  by  Arkwright,  Watt,  Davy,  and 
Stephenson.  His  is  a  positive,  matter-of-fact 
world,  of  which  Peel  is  the  statesman  and 
Macaulay  the  man  of  letters.  Macaulay,  in 
his  essay  on  Bacon,  has  given  us  the  mea- 
sure of  its  spiritual  elevation  :  "  We  have 
sometimes  thought  that  an  amusing  fiction 


324         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

might  be  written,  in  which  a  disciple  of  Epic- 
tetus  and  a  disciple  of  Bacon  should  be  in- 
troduced as  fellow  travelers.  They  come  to 
a  village  where  the  smallpox  has  just  begun 
to  rage,  and  find  houses  shut  up,  intercourse 
suspended,  the  sick  abandoned,  mothers 
weeping  in  terror  over  their  children.  The 
Stoic  assures  the  dismayed  population  that 
there  is  nothing  bad  in  the  smallpox ;  and 
that,  to  a  wise  man,  disease,  deformity,  death, 
the  loss  of  friends,  are  not  evils.  The  Ba- 
conian takes  out  a  lancet  and  begins  to  vac- 
cinate. They  find  a  body  of  miners  in  great 
dismay.  An  explosion  of  noisome  vapors 
has  just  killed  many  of  those  who  were  at 
work ;  and  the  survivors  are  afraid  to  ven- 
ture into  the  cavern.  The  Stoic  assures  them 
that  such  an  accident  is  nothing  but  a  mere 
aiTOTTporjyixevov.  The  Baconian,  who  has 
no  such  fine  word  at  his  command,  contents 
himself  with  devising  a  safety-lamp.  They 
find  a  shipwrecked  merchant  wringing  his 
hands  on  the  shore.  His  vessel,  with  an  in- 
estimable cargo,  has  just  gone  down,  and  he 
is  reduced  in  a  moment  from  opulence  to 
beggary.  The  Stoic  exhorts  him  not  to  seek 
happiness  in  things  which  lie  without  him- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         325 

self ;  the  Baconian  constructs  a  diving-bell. 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  illustrations  of 
the  difference  between  the  philosophy  of 
thorns  and  the  philosophy  of  fruit,  the  phi- 
losophy of  words  and  the  philosophy  of 
works."  This  is  the  very  nobility  of  ma- 
chinery. As  we  read,  we  listen  to  the  buzz 
and  whirr  of  wheels,  the  drip  of  oil-cans,  the 
creaking  and  straining  of  muscle  and  steel. 
Such  things  serve,  no  doubt,  in  default  of 
other  agencies,  to  create  a  great  empire,  but 
the  England  of  Thackeray's  day  was  nouveau 
riche,  self-made,  proud  of  its  lack  of  occu- 
pation other  than  money-getting. 

During  the  formative  period  of  Thack- 
eray's life  the  EngHsh  nation  was  passing 
under  the  influence  of  machinery.  There 
was  the  opportunity  of  a  great  man  of  let- 
ters, such  as  Thackeray,  to  look  to  it  that 
literature  should  respond  to  the  stimulus  of 
added  power,  and  grow  so  potent  that  it 
would  determine  what  direction  the  national 
life  should  take.  At  such  a  time  of  national 
expansion,  hterature  should  have  seen  Eng- 
land in  the  flush  of  coming  greatness  ;  it 
should  have  roused  itself  to  re-create  her  in 
nobler  imagination,  and  have  spent  itself  in 


326         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

making  her  accept  this  estimate  and  expec- 
tation, and  become  an  England  dominating 
material  advantages  and  leading  the  world. 

The  interest  in  life  is  this  potentiality  and 
malleability.  The  allotted  task  of  men  and 
women  is  to  take  this  potentiality  and  shape 
it.  Men  who  have  strong  intelligence  and 
quick  perceptions,  like  Thackeray,  accom- 
plish a  great  deal  in  the  way  of  giving  a 
definite  form  to  the  material  with  which  life 
furnishes  us.  What  Michelangelo  says  of 
marble  is  true  of  life  :  — 

"  Non  ha  I'ottirao  artista  alcun  concetto 
Ch'un  marmo  solo  in  se  non  circoscriva 
Col  suo  soverchio." 

The  problem  of  life  is  to  uncover  the  figures 
hiding  in  this  material :  shall  it  be  Caliban 
and  Circe,  or  Philip  Sidney  and  Jeanne 
d'Arc?  Thackeray,  with  what  Mrs.  Ritchie 
calls  "  his  great  deal  of  common  sense,"  saw 
Major  Pendennis  and  Becky  Sharp  ;  and  he 
gave  more  effective  cuttings  and  chiselings 
and  form  to  the  potential  life  of  England 
than  any  other  man  of  his  time. 

The  common  apology  for  such  a  novelist 
is  that  he  describes  what  he  sees.  This  is 
the  worst  with  which  we  charge  him.     We 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         327 

charge  Thackeray  with  seeing  what  he  de- 
scribes ;  and  what  justification  has  a  man,  in 
a  world  like  this,  to  spend  his  time  looking 
at  Barnes  Newcome  and  Sir  Pitt  Crawley? 
Thackeray  takes  the  motes  and  beams  float- 
ing in  his  mind's  eye  for  men  and  women, 
writes  about  them,  and  calls  his  tale  a  his- 
tory. 

Thackeray  wrote,  on  finishing  "  Vanity 
Fair,"  that  all  the  characters  were  odious 
except  Dobbin.  Poor  Thackeray,  what  a 
world  to  see  all  about  him,  with  his  tender, 
affectionate  nature !  Even  Colonel  New- 
come  is  so  crowded  round  by  a  mob  of  ras- 
cally fellows  that  it  is  hard  to  do  justice  to 
Thackeray's  noblest  attempt  to  be  a  poet. 
But  why  see  a  world,  and  train  children  to 
see  a  world,  where 

"  The  great  man  is  a  vulgar  clown  "  ? 

A  world  with  such  an  unreal  standard  must 
be  an  unreal  world.  In  the  real  world  vul- 
gar clowns  are  not  great  men.  Thackeray 
sees  a  world  all  topsy-turvy,  and  it  does  not 
occur  to  him  that  he,  and  not  the  world,  is 
at  fault.  This  is  the  curse  of  faithlessness. 
He  himself  says,  "  The  world  is  a  looking- 


328         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

glass,  and  gives  back  to  every  man  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  face." 

Thackeray  has  been  praised  as  a  master 
of  reahty.  As  reahty  is  beyond  our  ken, 
the  phrase  is  unfortunate ;  but  the  signifi- 
cance of  it  is  that  if  a  man  will  portray  to 
the  mob  the  world  with  which  the  mob  is 
familiar,  they  will  huzza  themselves  hoarse. 
Has  not  the  Parisian  mob  shouted  for  Zola? 
Do  not  the  Madrileiios  cheer  Valdes?  Do 
not  Ouida  and  the  pale  youth  of  Rome  and 
Paris  holla,  "  d'Annunzio  !  d'Annunzio  !  " 
There  is  no  glory  here.  The  poet,  not  in 
fine  frenzy,  but  in  sober  simplicity,  tells  the 
mob,  not  what  they  see,  but  what  they  can- 
not of  themselves  perceive,  with  such  a  tone 
of  authority  that  they  stand  gaping  and  like- 
wise see. 

Thackeray's  love  of  reality  was  merely  an 
embodiment  of  the  popular  feeling  which 
proposed  to  be  direct,  business-like,  and  not 
to  tolerate  any  nonsense.  People  felt  that  a 
money-getting  country  must  take  itself  seri- 
ously. The  Reform  Act  had  brought  political 
control  to  the  bourgeoisie,  men  of  common 
sense ;  no  ranters,  no  will-o'-the-wisp  chasers, 
but "  burgomasters  and  great  oneyers," — men 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         329 

who  thought  very  highly  of  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  prosperous,  and  asked 
for  no  more  beautiful  sight  than  their  own 
virtues.  Influenced  by  the  sympathetic  touch 
of  this  atmosphere,  novel-readers  found  their 
former  favorites  old-fashioned.  Disraeli, 
Samuel  Warren,  Bulwer  Lytton,  G.  P.  R. 
James,  seemed  false,  theatrical,  and  senti- 
mental. Thackeray  was  of  this  opinion, 
and  he  studied  the  art  of  caricature  as  the 
surest  means  of  saving  himself  from  any 
such  fantastic  nonsense.  He  approached  life 
as  a  city  man,  —  one  who  was  convinced  that 
the  factories  of  London,  not  the  theories  of 
the  philosopher,  were  the  real  motive  force 
underneath  all  the  busy  flow  of  outward  life. 
He  found  his  talents  exactly  suited  to  this 
point  of  view.  His  memory  was  an  enormous 
wallet,  into  which  his  hundred-handed  obser- 
vation was  day  and  night  tossing  scraps  and 
bits  of  daily  experience.  He  saw  the  meet- 
ings of  men  as  he  passed  :  lords,  merchants, 
tinsmiths,  guardsmen,  tailors,  cooks,  valets, 
nurses,  policemen,  boys,  applewomen,  — 
everybody  whom  you  meet  of  a  morning  be- 
tween your  house  and  your  office  in  the  city. 
He  remarked   the   gestures,   he    heard    the 


330         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

words,  he  guessed  what  had  gone  before,  he 
divined  what  would  happen  thereafter :  and 
each  sight,  sound,  guess,  and  divination  was 
safely  stowed  away.  England  of  the  forties, 
as  Thackeray  saw  it,  is  in  "  Vanity  Fair," 
"Pendennis,"  and  "The  Newcomes."  "I 
ask  you  to  believe,"  he  says  in  the  preface 
to  "  Pendenuis,"  "  that  this  person  writing 
strives  to  tell  the  truth." 

Where  lies  the  truth  ?  Are  men  merely 
outward  parts  of  machinery,  exposed  to  view, 
while  down  below  in  the  engine-room  steam 
and  electricity  determine  their  movements? 
Or  do  men  live  and  carry  on  their  daily  rou- 
tine under  the  influence  of  some  great 
thought  of  which  they  are  half  unconscious, 
but  by  which  they  are  shaped,  moulded,  and 
moved  ?     A  French  poet  says  :  — 

"  Le  vrai  Dieu,  le  Dieu  fort,  est  le  Dieu  des  id^es." 

But  Macaulay  says  that  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  began  with  words  and  ended  with 
words ;  that  an  acre  in  Middlesex  is  better 
than  a  principality  in  Utopia.  The  Brit- 
ish public  applauded  Macaulay,  and  young 
Thackeray  took  the  hint. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         331 

IV 

Nobody  can  question  Thackeray's  style. 
His  fame  is  proof  of  its  excellence.  Even  if 
a  man  will  flatter  the  mob  by  saying  that  he 
sees  what  they  see,  he  cannot  succeed  with- 
out skill  of  expression.  Readers  are  slow 
to  understand.  They  need  grace,  pithy  sen- 
tences, witty  turns  of  phrase,  calculated  sweep 
of  periods  and  paragraphs.  They  must  have 
no  labor  of  attention ;  the  right  adjective 
alone  will  catch  their  eyes ;  they  require 
their  pages  plain,  clear,  perspicuous.  In  all 
these  qualities  Thackeray  is  very  nearly  per- 
fect. Hardly  anybody  would  say  that  there 
is  a  novel  better  written  than  "  Vanity  Fair." 
The  story  runs  as  easily  as  the  hours.  Chap- 
ter after  chapter  in  the  best  prose  carries  the 
reader  comfortably  on.  Probably  this  excel- 
lence is  due  to  Thackeray's  great  powers  of 
observation.  His  eyes  saw  everything,  sav- 
ing for  the  blindness  of  his  inward  eye,  and 
his  memory  held  it.  He  was  exceedingly 
sensitive.  Page  after  page  is  filled  with  the 
vividness  of  well-chosen  detail.  He  culti- 
vated the  art  of  writing  most  assiduously. 
From  1830  to  1847,  when  "  Vanity  Fair," 


332         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

the  first  of  his  great  novels,  was  published, 
he  was  writing  all  the  time,  and  for  almost 
all  of  that  time  as  a  humorist,  drawing  cari- 
catures, —  a  kind  of  writing  perhaps  better 
adapted  than  any  other  to  cultivate  the  power 
of  portraying  scenes.  The  caricaturist  is  re- 
stricted to  a  few  lines;  his  task  does  not 
allow  him  to  fill  in,  to  ampHfy ;  he  must  say 
his  say  in  Httle.  The  success  of  wit  is  the 
arrangement  of  a  dozen  words.  This  training 
for  sixteen  continuous  years  taught  Thack- 
eray a  style  which,  for  his  subjects,  has  no 
equal  in  English  literature. 

To-day  we  greatly  admire  Stevenson  and 
Kipling.  We  applaud  Stevenson's  style  for 
its  cultivation  and  its  charm ;  we  heap  praises 
upon  Kipling's  for  its  dash,  vigor,  and  accu- 
racy of  detail.  All  these  praises  are  deserved ; 
but  when  we  take  up  Thackeray  again,  we 
find  pages  and  pages  written  in  a  style 
more  cultivated  than  Stevenson's  and  equally 
charming,  and  with  a  dash,  vigor,  and  nicety 
of  detail  that  Kipling  might  envy.  Descrip- 
tions that  would  constitute  the  bulk  of  an 
essay  for  the  one,  or  of  a  story  for  the  other, 
do  hasty  service  as  prologues  to  Thackeray's 
chapters.     Conversations  of  a  happy  theatri- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         333 

cal  turn,  with  enough  exaggeration  to  appear 
wholly  natural,  which  Stevenson  and  Kipling 
never  have  rivaled,  come  crowding  together 
in  his  long  novels. 

There  are  two  famous  scenes  which  are 
good  examples  of  Thackeray's  power,  —  one 
of  his  sentiment,  one  of  his  humor.  The  first 
is  Colonel  Newcome's  death  in  the  Charter- 
house. The  second  is  the  first  scene  between 
Pendennis  and  the  Fotheringay.  "  Pen  tried 
to  engage  her  in  conversation  about  poetry 
and  about  her  profession.  He  asked  her 
what  she  thought  of  Ophelia's  madness,  and 
whether  she  was  in  love  with  Hamlet  or  not. 
*  In  love  with  such  a  little  ojus  wretch  as  that 
stunted  manager  of  a  Bingley  ? '  She  bris- 
tled with  indignation  at  the  thought.  Pen 
explained  it  was  not  of  her  he  spoke,  but 
of  Ophelia  of  the  play.  *  Oh,  indeed  ;  if  no 
offense  was  meant,  none  was  taken  :  but  as 
for  Bingley,  indeed,  she  did  not  value  him, 
—  not  that  glass  of  punch.'  Pen  next  tried 
her  on  Kotzebue.  ^  Kotzebue  ?  Who  was 
he  ?  '  ^  The  author  of  the  play  in  which  she 
had  been  performing  so  admirably.'  ^  She 
did  not  know  that  —  the  man's  name  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book  was  Thompson,'  she 


334         SOME   ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY 

said.  Pen  laughed  at  her  adorable  simpli- 
city. He  told  her  of  the  melancholy  fate 
of  the  author  of  the  play,  and  how  Sand  had 
killed  him.  .  .  .  ^  How  beautiful  she  is ! ' 
thought  Pen,  cantering  homewards.  '  How 
simple  and  how  tender  !  How  charming  it 
is  to  see  a  woman  of  her  genius  busying  her- 
self with  the  humble  offices  of  domestic  life, 
cooking  dishes  to  make  her  old  father  com- 
fortable, and  brewing  him  drink  !  How  rude 
it  was  of  me  to  begin  to  talk  about  profes- 
sional matters,  and  how  well  she  turned  the 
conversation  !  .  .  .  Pendennis,  Pendennis,  — 
how  she  spoke  the  word !  Emily,  Emily !  how 
good,  how  noble,  how  beautiful,  how  perfect, 
she  is ! '" 

This  scene  is  very  close  upon  farce,  and  it 
is  in  that  borderland  that  Thackeray's  ex- 
traordinary skill  shows  itself  most  conspicu- 
ous. Difficult,  however,  as  it  must  be  to  be 
a  master  there,  —  and  the  fact  that  Thack- 
eray has  no  rival  in  this  respect  proves  it,  — 
it  is  easy  work  compared  to  drawing  a  scene 
of  real  love,  of  passion.  Perhaps  some  ac- 
tions of  Lady  Castlewood  are  Thackeray's 
only  attempt  thereat.  The  world  of  passion 
is  not  his  world.     His  ear  is  not  attuned  to 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         335 

"  Das  tiefe,  schmerzenvolle  Gliick 
Des  Hasses  Kraft,  die  Macht  der  Liebe." 

Charlotte  Bronte, -JCourgueftef;^  Hawthorne, 
Hugo,  Balzac,  all  excel  him.  Thackeray 
hears  the  click  of  custom  against  custom,  the 
throb  of  habit,  the  tick-tick  of  vulgar  life, 
all  the  sounds  of  English  social  machinery. 
What  interests  him  is  the  relation  that  Harry 
Foker  or  Blanche  Amory  bears  to  the  stan- 
dard of  social  excellence  accepted  by  com- 
mercial England  in  the  forties.  He  is  never 
—  at  least  as  an  artist  —  disturbed  by  any 
scheme  of  metaphysics.  His  English  com- 
mon sense  is  never  lured  afield  by  any  specu- 
lations about  the  value  of  a  human  being 
uncolored  by  the  shadows  of  time  and  space. 
He  is  never  troubled  by  doubts  of  standards, 
by  skepticism  as  to  uses,  ends,  purposes ;  he 
has  a  hard-and-fast  British  standard.  He 
draws  Colonel  Newcome  as  an  object  of 
pity  ;  he  surrounds  him  with  tenderness  and 
sympathy.  Here  is  Thackeray  at  his  highest. 
But  he  never  suggests  to  the  reader  that 
Colonel  Newcome  is  not  a  man  to  be  pitied, 
but  to  be  envied ;  not  a  failure,  but  a  suc- 
cess ;  not  unhappy,  but  most  fortunate.  The 
great  poets  of  the  world  have  turned  the 


336         SOME  ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY 

malefactor's  cross  into  the  symbol  of  holi- 
ness. Thackeray  never  departs  from  the 
British  middle  class  conceptions  of  triumph 
and  failure.  In  all  his  numerous  disserta- 
tions and  asides  to  the  reader,  he  wrote  like 
the  stalwart  Briton  he  was,  good,  generous, 
moral,  domestic,  stern,  and  tender.  You 
never  forget  his  Puritan  ancestry,  you  can 
rely  upon  his  honesty ;  but  he  is  not  pure- 
minded  or  humble.  He  dislikes  wrong,  but 
he  never  has  a  high  enough  conception  of 
right  to  hate  wrong.  His  view  is  that  it  is  a 
matter  to  be  cured  by  policemen,  propriety, 
and  satire. 

Satire  is  the  weapon  of  the  man  at  odds 
with  the  world  and  at  ease  with  himself. 
The  dissatisfied  man  —  a  Juvenal,  a  Swift, 
a  youthful  Thackeray  —  belabors  the  world 
with  vociferous  indignation,  like  the  wind 
on  the  traveler's  back,  the  beating  makes 
it  hug  its  cloaking  sins  the  tighter.  Wrong 
runs  no  danger  from  such  chastisement.  The 
fight  against  wrong  is  made  by  the  man  dis- 
contented with  himself  and  careless  of  the 
world.  Satire  is  harmless  as  a  moral  weapon. 
It  is  an  old-fashioned  fowling  piece,  fit  for  a 
man  of  wit,  intelhgence,  and  a  certain  limited 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         337 

imagination.  It  runs  no  risk  of  having  no 
quarry ;  the  world  to  it  is  one  vast  covert  of 
lawful  game.  It  goes  a-traveling  with  wit, 
because  both  are  in  search  of  the  unworthy. 
It  is  well  suited  to  a  brilliant  style.  It  is 
also  a  conventional  department  in  literature, 
and  as  such  is  demanded  by  publishers  and 
accepted  by  the  public. 

Thackeray  was  born  with  dexterity  of  ob- 
servation, nimbleness  of  wit,  and  a  quick 
sense  of  the  incongruous  and  the  grotesque. 
He  lost  his  fortune  when  a  young  man.  He 
wrote  for  a  livelihood,  and  naturally  turned 
to  that  branch  of  Hterature  which  was  best 
suited  to  his  talents.  It  was  his  misfortune 
that  satire  is  bad  for  a  man's  moral  develop- 
ment. It  intensified  his  natural  disbelief  in 
the  worth  of  humanity,  but  gave  him  the 
schoohng  that  enabled  him  to  use  his  powers 
so  brilHantly. 

Thackeray  was  often  hampered  by  this 
habit  of  looking  at  the  grotesque  side  of 
things.  It  continually  dragged  him  into 
farce,  causing  feebleness  of  effect  Avhere  there 
should  have  been  power.  Sir  Pitt  Crawley, 
Jos  Sedley,  the  struggle  over  Miss  Crawley, 
Harry  Foker,  the  Chevaher  de  Florae,  Aunt 


338         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

Hoggerty,  are  all  in  the  realm  of  farce.  This 
is  due  partly  to  Thackeray's  training,  and 
partly  to  his  attitude  toward  life.  If  life 
consists  of  money,  clothes,  and  a  bundle  of 
social  relations,  our  daily  gravity,  determina- 
tion, and  vigor  are  farcical,  because  they  are 
so  out  of  place  ;  they  are  as  incongruous  as 
a  fish  in  trousers.  But  Thackeray  forgets 
that  there  is  something  disagreeable  in  this 
farce,  as  there  would  be  in  looking  into 
Circe's  sty  and  seeing  men  groveling  over 
broken  meats.  To  be  sure,  Thackeray  makes 
believe  that  he  finds  it  comic  to-  see  crea- 
tures of  great  pretensions  busy  themselves  so 
continually  with  the  pettiest  things.  But  it 
too  often  seems  as  if  the  comic  element  con- 
sisted in  our  human  pretensions,  and  as  if 
Thackeray  merely  kept  bringing  them  to  the 
reader's  notice  for  the  sake  of  heightening 
the  contrast  between  men  and  their  doings. 

V 
Thackeray  is  not  an  innovator  ;  he  follows 
the  traditions  of  English  literature.  He  is  in 
direct  descent  from  the  men  of  the  "  Specta- 
tor," Addison,  Steele,  and  their  friends,  and 
from  Fielding.     He  has  far  greater  powers 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         339 

of  observation,  wit,  liiimor,  sentiment,  and 
description  than  the  "  Spectator  "  group.  He 
excels  Fielding  in  everything  except  as  a 
story-teller,  and  in  a  kind  of  intellectual 
power  that  is  more  easily  discerned  in  Field- 
ing than  described,  —  a  kind  of  imperious 
understanding  that  breaks  down  a  path  be- 
fore it,  whereas  Thackeray's  intelligence 
looks  in  at  a  window  or  peeps  through  the 
keyhole.  Fielding  is  the  bigger,  coarser 
man  of  the  two ;  Thackeray  is  the  cleverer. 
Each  is  thoroughly  English.  Fielding  em- 
bodies the  England  of  George  I. ;  Thack- 
eray, that  same  England  refined  by  the  re- 
volutionary ideas  of  1789,  trained  by  long 
■wars,  then  materiaHzed  by  machinery,  by  a 
successful  bourgeoisie,  and  the  quick  acces- 
sion of  wealth.  Each  is  a  good  fellow,  — 
quick  in  receiving  ideas,  but  slow  to  learn  a 
new  point  of  view.  Fielding  is  inferior  to 
Thackeray  in  education,  in  experience  of 
many  men,  and  in  foreign  travel.  Tom 
Jones  is  the  begetter  of  Arthur  Pendennis, 
Jonathan  Wild  of  Barry  Lyndon.  Some  of 
Fielding's  heroines,  wandering  out  of  "  Tom 
Jones "  and  "  Amelia,"  have  strayed  into 
"Pendennis,"    "Vanity    Fair,"   and    "The 


340         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

Newcomes."  The  fair  emigrees  change  their 
names,  but  keep  their  thoughts  and  be- 
havior. 

It  is  said  that  a  lady  once  asked  Thack- 
eray why  he  made  all  his  women  fools  or 
knaves.  "  Madam,  I  know  no  others."  It 
may  be  that  living  in  Paris  in  his  youth  hurt 
his  insight  into  women ;  it  may  be  that  the 
great  sorrow  of  his  wife's  insanity  instinc- 
tively turned  his  thoughts  from  the  higher 
types  of  women  ;  perhaps  his  life  in  Bohemia 
and  in  clubs  limited  his  knowledge  during 
the  years  when  novel-writing  was  his  chief 
occupation.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that 
Thackeray,  like  Fielding,  was  a  man's  man, 
—  he  understood  one  cross-section  of  a  com- 
mon man,  his  hopes,  aims,  fears,  wishes, 
habits,  and  manners  ;  but  he  was  very  igno- 
rant of  women.  He  says:  "Desdemona  was 
not  angry  with  Cassio,  though  there  is  very 
little  doubt  she  saw  the  lieutenant's  partial- 
ity for  her  (and  I,  for  my  part,  beheve  that 
many  more  things  took  place  in  that  sad 
affair  than  the  worthy  Moorish  officer  ever 
knew  of) ;  why,  Miranda  was  even  very  kind 
to  Caliban,  and  we  may  be  pretty  sure  for 
the  same  reason.     Not  that  she  would  en- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         341 

courage  him  in  the  least,  the  poor  uncouth 
monster,  —  of  course  not."  Shakespeare  and 
Thackeray  looked  differently  at  women. 

Thackeray  lacked  the  poet's  eye ;  he  could 
not  see  and  was  not  troubled. 

*'  Ahi  quanto  nella  mente  mi  commossi, 
Quando  mi  volsi  per  veder  Beatrice, 
Per  non  poter  vedere,  ben  ch'io  fossi 
Presso  di  lei,  e  nel  mondo  felice  !  " 

But  poor  Thackeray  was  never  near  the  ideal, 
and  never  in  paradise.  Some  critic  has  said 
of  him  that  because  he  had  Eden  in  his  mind's 
eye,  this  world  appeared  a  Vanity  Fair.  No 
criticism  could  be  more  perverted  ;  he  had 
Vanity  Fair  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  therefore 
could  not  see  paradise. 

This  treatment  of  women  is  half  from 
sheer  ignorance,  and  half  from  Thackeray's 
habit  of  dealing  in  caricature  with  subjects 
of  which  he  is  io^norant.  He  behaves  toward 
foreign  coimtries  very  much  as  he  does  to- 
ward women.  France,  Germany,  Italy,  ap- 
pear like  geography  in  an  opera  bouffe. 
They  are  places  for  Enghsh  blackguards  to 
go  to,  and  very  fit  places  for  them,  tenanted 
as  they  are  by  natives  clad  in  outlandish 
trousers,  and  bearded  and  mustachioed  like 


342         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

pards.  Of  the  French  he  says  :  "  In  their 
aptitude  to  swallow,  to  utter,  to  enact  hum- 
bugs, these  French  people,  from  Majesty 
downwards,  beat  all  the  other  nations  of 
this  earth.  In  looking  at  these  men,  their 
manners,  dresses,  opinions,  politics,  actions, 
history,  it  is  impossible  to  preserve  a  grave 
countenance  ;  instead  of  having  Carlyle  to 
write  a  history  of  the  French  Revolution,  I 
often  think  it  should  be  handed  over  to  Dick- 
ens or  Theodore  Hook.  ...  I  can  hardly 
bring  my  mind  to  fancy  that  anything  is 
serious  in  France,  —  it  seems  to  be  aU  rant, 
tinsel,  and  stage-play."  His  attitude  toward 
French  literature  is  distorted  by  lack  of  sym- 
pathy to  an  astonishing  degree. 

Thackeray's  fault  was  not  merely  a  certain 
narrowness  of  mind,  but  also  that  he  allowed 
himself  to  see  only  the  grotesque  and  disa- 
greeable, until  habit  and  nature  combined  to 
bhnd  him  to  other  things. 

VI 

Thackeray  is  not  a  democrat.  Democracy, 
like  many  another  great  and  vague  social 
conception,  is  based  upon  a  fundamental 
truth,  of  which  its  adherents  are  often  igno- 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         343 

rant,  although  they  brush  against  it  in  the 
dark  and  unwittingly  draw  in  strength  for 
their  belief.  The  fundamental  truth  of  de- 
mocracy is  that  the  real  pleasures  of  life  are 
increased  by  sharing  them,  —  that  exclusive- 
ness  renders  pleasure  insipid.  One  reason 
why  democracy  has  prevailed  so  greatly  is 
that  everywhere,  patent  to  everybody,  in  the 
simplest  family  hfe,  there  is  proof  of  this 
truth.  A  man  amuses  himself  skipping 
stones :  the  occupation  has  a  pleasure  hardly 
to  be  detected ;  with  a  wife  it  is  interesting, 
with  children  it  becomes  exciting.  Every 
new  sharer  adds  to  the  father's  stock  of  de- 
hght,  so  that  at  last  he  lies  awake  on  winter 
nights  thinking  of  the  summer's  pleasure. 
With  a  slight  application  of  logic,  democrats 
have  struggled,  and  continually  do  struggle, 
to  break  down  all  the  bastions,  walls,  and 
fences  that  time,  prejudice,  and  ignorance 
have  erected  between  men.  They  wish  to 
have  a  ready  channel  from  man  to  man, 
through  which  the  emotional  floods  of  life 
can  pour ; 

"  For  they,  at  least, 
Have  dream'd  [that]  human  hearts  might  blend 
In  one,  and  were  through  faith  released 
From  isolation  without  end." 


344         SOME  ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY 

The  brotherhood  of  man,  however,  is  not 
a  week-day  matter;  men  are  brothers  only 
in  brief  moments  of  poetry  and  enthusiasm; 
at  other  times  they  are  unneighborly  enough. 
The  course  of  our  civihzation  (so  we  are  pleased 
to  designate  the  aggregate  of  our  incivil 
ways  and  habits)  has  helped  the  separation 
of  man  from  man,  not  without  excuse.  Hu- 
manity has  had  a  hard  task  in  civilizing  itself; 
in  periods  of  ignorance,  ill  humor,  and  hun- 
ger it  has  built  up  a  most  elaborate  system, 
which  has  been  a  great  factor  in  material 
prosperity.  This  system  is  the  specialization 
of  labor,  which  serves  to  double  the  necessary 
differences  among  men,  and  to  make  every 
specialty  and  every  difference  a  hindrance  to 
the  joys  that  should  be  in  commonalty  spread. 
The  age  of  machinery  has  increased  special- 
ization, specialization  has  increased  wealth, 
wealth  is  popularly  supposed  to  be  the  pana- 
cea for  himian  ills ;  and  the  bars  and  barriers 
between  men  have  been  repaired  and  strength- 
ened. Specialization  in  Thackeray's  time  was 
in  the  very  air ;  everything  was  specialized,  — 
trade  was  specialized,  society  was  specialized, 
money  was  specialized;  there  was  money  made, 
money  inherited  from  father,  money  inherited 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         346 

from  grandfather,  —  money,  like  blood,  grow- 
ing purer  and  richer  the  further  back  it  could 
be  traced.  Every  act  of  specialization  pro- 
duced a  new  batch  of  social  relations. 

To  this  elaborate  system  of  specialization, 
and  to  its  dividing  properties,  Thackeray  is 
very  sensitive.  He  has  no  gift  for  abstrac- 
tion ;  he  does  not  take  a  man  and  grow 
absorbed  in  him  as  a  spiritual  being,  as  a 
creature  in  relations  with  some  Absolute  ;  he 
sees  men  shut  off  and  shut  up  in  all  sorts  of 
little  coops.  He  is  all  attentive  to  the  coops. 
The  world  to  him  is  one  vast  zoological 
garden,  this  Vanity  Fair  of  his.  He  is  not 
interested  in  the  great  concerns  of  life  which 
make  men  cleave  to  one  another,  but  in  the 
different  occupations,  clothes,  habits,  which 
separate  them  into  different  groups.  A  de- 
mocrat does  not  care  for  such  classification ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  wishes  to  efface  it  as 
much  as  possible.  He  wishes  to  abstract 
man  from  his  conditions  and  surroundings, 
and  contemplate  him  as  a  certain  quantity  of 
human  essence.  He  looks  upon  the  distinc- 
tions of  rank,  of  occupation,  of  customs  and 
habits,  as  so  many  barricades  upon  the  great 
avenues  of  human  emotions  3  Napoleon-like, 


346         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

he  would  sweep  them  away.  He  regards  man 
as  a  serious  reaHty,  and  these  accidents  of  so- 
cial relations  as  mere  shadows  passing  over. 
This  is  the  Christian  position.  This  is  the  at- 
titude of  Victor  Hugo,  George  Eliot,  George 
Sand,  Hawthorne,  Tourgenef,  Tolstoi,  Char- 
lotte Bronte. 

No  wonder  that  Charlotte  Bronte  made 
this  criticism  upon  Thackeray's  face :  "  To 
me  the  broad  broAv  seems  to  express  intellect. 
Certain  lines  about  the  nose  and  cheek  be- 
tray the  satirist  and  cynic ;  the  mouth  indi- 
cates a  childhke  simplicity,  —  perhaps  even 
a  degree  of  irresoluteness,  inconsistency,  — 
weakness,  in  short,  but  a  weakness  not  una- 
miable.  ...  A  certain  not  quite  Christian 
expression."  This  is  a  true  likeness.  Thack- 
eray was  not  a  Christian.  He  acted  upon 
all  the  standards  which  Christianity  has  pro- 
claimed to  be  false  for  nearly  two  thousand 
years.  He  had  a  certain  childlike  simplicity. 
Some  of  his  best  passages  proceed  upon  it. 
Take  the  chapters  in  "  Vanity  Fair  "  where 
Amelia  is  neglected  by  Osborne,  or  the  scene 
at  Colonel  Newcome's  death.  These  inci- 
dents are  described  as  they  would  appear  to 
a  child.     The  inn3ressions  seem  to  have  been 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         347 

dinted  on  the  sensitive,  inexperienced  mind 
of  a  child.  This  quahty  is  Thackeray's 
highest.  He  is  able  to  throw  off  the  dust 
of  years,  and  see  things  with  the  eyes  of  a 
child,  —  not  a  child  traiUng  glory  from  the 
east,  but  one  bred  in  healthful  ignorance. 

Walter  Bagehot,  in  his  essay  on  Sterne 
and  Thackeray,  compares  the  two,  and,  after 
describing  Sterne's  shiftless,  lazy  life,  asks. 
What  can  there  be  in  common  between  him 
and  the  great  Thackeray,  industrious  and 
moral  ?  Bagehot  found  that  the  two  had 
sensitiveness  in  common.  There  is  another 
likeness,  —  a  certain  lack  of  independence,  a 
swimming  with  the  stream.  Thackeray  has 
an  element  of  weakness ;  it  appears  contin- 
ually in  his  method  of  writing  novels.  He 
puts  his  character  before  you,  but  he  never 
suffers  you  to  consider  it  by  yourself  ;  he  is 
nervously  suggesting  this  and  that ;  he  is 
afraid  that  you  may  misjudge  what  he  con- 
ceives to  be  his  own  correct  moral  standard. 
He  points  out  how  virtuous  he  really  is,  how 
good  and  noble.  He  keeps  underscoring  the 
badness  of  his  bad  people,  and  the  weakness 
of  his  weak  people.  He  is  like  a  timid 
mother,  who  will  not  let  her  brood  out  of 


348         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

sight  while  any  one  is  looking  at  them. 
Moreover,  his  satire  never  attacks  anybody 
or  anything  that  a  man  could  be  found 
publicly  to  defend.  He  charges  upon  social 
malefactors  who  are  absolutely  defenseless. 
He  belabors  brutality,  avarice,  boorishness, 
knavery,  prevarication,  with  most  resounding 
thwacks. 

In  the  year  1847  "  Vanity  Fair  "  was  pub- 
lished. Thackeray  won  great  fame  as  the 
terrible  satirist  of  society.  And  what  did 
society  do  ?  Society  invited  him  to  dinner, 
in  the  correct  belief  that  it  and  Thackeray 
agreed  at  every  point.  We  think  that  such 
satire  betrays  a  certain  weakness  and  lack  of 
courage.  Did  the  Jesuits  invite  Mohere  to 
dinner  after  ^^Tartuffe"? 

Thackeray's  face  had,  according  to  the 
criticism  we  have  quoted,  "  a  weakness  not 
unamiable."  Certainly  Thackeray  was  not 
unamiable ;  he  must  have  been  most  lovable 
in  many  ways.  The  childlike  characteristic 
to  which  we  have  alluded  is  enough  to  prove 
that ;  and  in  chapter  after  chapter  we  find 
evidence  of  his  human  kindhness.  Take,  for 
example,  the  passage  quoted  by  Mr.  Merivale, 
in  his  somewhat  pugnacious  Life  of  Thacke- 


SOME  ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY         349 

ray,  from  Titmarsh's  letter  on  Napoleon's 
funeral  at  Les  Invalides.  Here  is  a  descrip- 
tion of  an  English  family  in  three  genera- 
tions, a  somewhat  foolish  family,  perhaps, 
given  with  some  affectation,  but  perfectly 
genuine  in  its  sympathy  with  childish  hopes 
and  fears.  His  books  are  full  of  passages  of 
a  like  character.  If  further  evidence  were 
needed,  Mrs.  Ritchie's  prefaces  to  this  new 
edition  supply  it  most  abundantly. 

VII 
A  novelist,  however,  in  the  end,  must  be 
judged  according  to  a  common  human  mea- 
sure. This  the  novelist,  like  other  men  de- 
voted to  special  pursuits,  resents  ;  he  inter- 
poses a  claim  of  privilege,  and  demands  a 
trial  by  his  peers.  He  claims  that  as  a  man 
he  may  be  judged  by  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry, 
but  as  a  novelist  —  in  that  noble  and  sacro- 
sanct capacity  —  he  is  only  within  the  juris- 
diction of  men  acquainted  with  the  difficul- 
ties and  triumphs  of  his  art.  This  is  the 
old  error,  —  the  Manichean  heresy  of  trying 
to  divide  the  one  and  indivisible  into  two. 
It  reminds  one  of  Gibbon's  "  I  sighed  as  a 
lover,  I  obeyed  as  a  son."     It  is  the  char- 


350         SOME   ASPECTS   OF  THACKERAY 

acter  of  the  novelist  that  provides  tissue  for 
his  novels ;  there  is  no  way  by  which  the 
novehst  can  sit  like  an  absentee  god  and  pro- 
ject into  the  world  a  work  that  tells  no  tales 
of  him.  Every  man  casts  his  work  in  his 
own  image.  Only  a  great  man  writes  a  great 
novel ;  only  a  mean  man  writes  a  mean  novel. 
A  novel  is  as  purely  a  personal  thing  as  a 
handshake,  and  is  to  be  judged  by  a  simple 
standard  which  everybody  can  understand. 

There  has  been  a  foolish  confusion  of 
nomenclature,  due  to  the  desire  of  critics  to 
make  a  special  vocabulary  for  themselves, 
partly  to  the  end  that  they  may  be  known 
to  be  critics,  partly  to  shut  themselves  off 
into  a  species  of  the  hterary  genus  that  shall 
be  judged  only  by  members  of  the  same 
species.  Hence  the  silly  words  "  idealism  " 
and  "  realism."  Maupassant  says  :  "  How 
childish  it  is  to  believe  in  reality,  since  each 
of  us  carries  his  own  in  his  mind  !  Our  eyes, 
ears,  noses,  tastes,  create  as  many  different  va- 
rieties of  truth  as  there  are  men  in  the  world. 
And  we  who  receive  the  teachings  of  these 
senses,  affected  each  in  his  own  way,  analyze, 
judge,  and  come  to  our  conclusions  as  if  we 
all  were  of  different  races.     Each  creates  an 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         351 

illusion  of  the  world  for  liimself ,  poetical,  sen- 
timental, gay,  melancholy,  ugly,  or  sad,  ac- 
cording to  his  nature."  This  is  a  correct 
statement,  but  it  does  not  go  far  enough. 
The  world  not  only  looks  different  to  differ- 
ent people,  but,  as  it  is  the  most  delicately 
plastic  and  sensitive  matter  imaginable,  it  is 
always  tending  to  become  for  any  commu- 
nity what  the  man  in  that  community  with  the 
greatest  capacity  for  expression  thinks  it  is. 
Like  an  old  Polonius,  the  city,  the  village,  or 
the  household  sees  the  world  in  shape  like 
a  camel,  or  backed  like  a  weasel  or  a  whale, 
according  as  the  prince  among  them  thinks. 
Consider  a  fashion  in  criticism  or  in  dress. 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  admired  Annibale  Car- 
racci,  and  all  the  people  who  looked  at  pic- 
tures, in  very  truth,  saw  beautiful  pictures  by 
the  great,  glorious  Annibale.  A  group  of 
dressmakers  and  ladies  of  quality  in  Paris 
wear  jackets  with  tight  sleeves,  and  every 
city-bred  woman  in  France,  England,  and 
America  sees  the  beauty  of  tight  sleeves  and 
the  hideousness  of  loose  sleeves. 

Strictly  speaking,  everything  is  real  and 
everything  is  ideal.  The  world  is  but  an 
aggregate  of  opinions.     The  man  who  sees 


352  SOME   ASPECTS   OF   THACKERAY 

an  ugly  world  is  as  pure  an  idealist  as  he 
who  sees  a  glorious  orb  rising  like  the  sun. 
The  question  for  poor  humanity  is,  Shall  the 
earth  shine  or  float  dead  and  dull  through 
eternity  ?  Every  man  who  sees  it  golden 
helps  to  gild  it ;  every  man  who  sees  it  leaden 
adds  to  its  dross. 

Shall  we  look  with  Mu-anda  ? 

"  O,  wonder  ! 
How  many  goodly  creatures  are  there  here  ! 
How  beauteous  mankind  is  !     O  brave  new  world, 
That  has  such  people  in  't  ! " 

Or  with  Timon  ? 

"All  is  oblique; 
There  's  nothing  level  in  our  cursed  natures, 
But  direct  villany." 

The  novelist  is  on  the  same  standing-ground 
as  another ;  only  he  has  the  greater  influ- 
ence, and  therefore  the  greater  responsibihty. 
This  world  and  all  which  inherit  it  are  a 
dream  ;  ^'  why  not  make  it  a  nobler  dream 
than  it  is  ?  " 

Before  this  great  act  of  creation,  the  petty 
details  of  the  novelist's  craft  —  plot,  story, 
arrangement,  epigram,  eloquence  —  drop  off 
like  last  year's  leaves.  These  details  will 
always  find  individuals  to  study  them,  to  ad- 
mire them,  to  be  fond  of  them.     They  will 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY         353 

have  their  reward,  they  add  to  the  interest 
of  life,  they  fill  the  vacant  niches  in  the  rich 
man's  time,  they  emhroider  and  spangle. 
They  quicken  our  wits,  stimulate  our  lazy 
attentions,  spice  our  daily  food,  help  us  to 
enjoy ;  but  they  must  not  divert  our  attention 
from  the  great  interest  of  life,  the  struggle 
between  rival  powers  for  the  possession  of  the 
world.  It  is  a  need  common  to  us  and  to 
those  who  shall  come  after  us,  that  the  world 
suffer  no  detriment  in  our  eyes.  We  must 
see  what  poets  see ;  one  cannot  help  but  dog- 
matize and  say  that  it  is  base  to  believe  the 
world  base.  We  need  faith  ;  we  cannot  do 
without  the  power  of  noble  expectation. 

"  Is  that  Hope  Faith,  that  lives  in  thought 
On  comforts  which  this  world  postpones, 
That  idly  looks  on  life  and  groans 
And  shuns  the  lessons  it  has  taught  ; 

"  Which  deems  that  after  threescore  years, 

Love,  peace,  and  joy  become  its  due, 

That  timid  wishes  should  come  true 

In  some  safe  spot  untouched  by  fears  ? 

*'  Or  has  he  Faith  who  looks  on  life 

As  present  chance  to  prove  his  heart, 
As  time  to  take  the  better  part, 
And  stronger  grow  by  constant  strife  ; 


354         SOME  ASPECTS  OF  THACKERAY 

"  Who  does  not  see  the  mean,  the  base, 
But  sees  the  strong,  the  fresh,  the  true, 
Old  hearts,  old  homes  forever  new, 
And  all  the  world  a  glorious  place  ; 

"  So  bent  that  they  he  loves  shall  find 
This  earth  a  home  both  good  and  fair, 
That  he  is  careless  to  be  heir 
To  all  inheritance  behind  ?  " 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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OCT 3  ,1966 

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UCLA-Young  Research   Library 

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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY  I 

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iliii^ 


